Welcome to Storybrooke
by withgirl
Summary: High School AU: The story of what happened to Emma Swan was all across the news and Cora Mills couldn't stop herself from wanting to help. Cora and Henry Sr fostered her and do all they can to make sure they adjust to being apart of her family. How would they feel about their new foster child and their daughter's deepening relationship? t/w for child abuse [Regina x Emma pairing]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Just a random idea I had :) there will be t/w's for abuse and general angst, but I can guarantee a happy ending :)**

Chapter one

Emma leaned her head against the car window and looked out into the rainy Maine day. She had found it more than strange when her social worker had told her that he had found her a family willing to foster her in some obscure town named Storybrooke. She knew that what she had been through in her last foster home had been on the news for while, but she didn't really think that someone would care enough about a news report to actually take action. At first, she had assumed that it was some politician trying to get some good publicity for taking in the poor little somewhat famous orphan child. But when she had found out more about Henry and Cora Mills, it turned out that she had only been half right. Cora Mills was indeed the mayor of this small town, but it seemed as though her reputation didn't actually need something like this to make her look good. She was always involved in charity work and had three children of her own who didn't appear to have ever done anything to bring her bad press. Plus, there was the fact that she was they mayor of such a small town that it didn't really make sense that she would need to take in a sixteen-year-old foster child from New York.

However, after so many years of hidden agendas and being moved around, she couldn't help but feel as though this woman wasn't really doing this out of the goodness of her heart. If she really did want to make a move from small town politics to something in the city, then this would certainly be a good first step to get people in New York to recognise her if she ever wanted to run for office. Her social worker had assured her over and over that this wasn't why the Mills family were taking her in and that there was a good chance that this would be the last home she would be sent to before she turned eighteen, but it was difficult after all these years not to be cynical.

Absentmindedly, she ran a hand over the cast on her left arm and she heard the man in the front seat clear his throat audibly.

"You're not supposed to touch that, Swan," August said, looking at her through the mirror before turning his attention back to the road.

Emma sighed and rolled her eyes at her social worker, replying, "it's itchy."

"The doctor said no touching, so no touching," he shot back and smirked slightly when the blonde dramatically against the car seat. She was usually very mature, but every-so-often, she would show glimpses of the child that she actually was and he was so relieved that was still possible after she had been through. He just hoped that finally being with a family that would take care of her well would make her happier than she had been probably since she could remember.

"He isn't my doctor anymore..." she tried.

"I'm sure that Dr Whale will say the same thing to you later. Mrs Mills said that she would take you to your appointment as soon as you've settled."

"She does know that 'settling in' for me is just putting my duffel bag in my room?" Emma sighed.

"You can take the stuff out of the bag, you know?"

The blonde shrugged and replied, "I'm sure all of the closet space will be taken up by her kids."

"Did I mention that the Mills family live in the mayoral mansion?" he asked, allowing himself to smirk once again when he saw the blank expression consume her face and added, "you'll be getting your own room, Swan."

Emma nodded slowly, with a small grin shining through her previously stormy expression. The last time that she'd had her own room was before her parents' death and it wasn't exactly as though she remembered much about living with them considering that she was only five at the time. Bringing her arm without a cast on, her fingers lightly brushed against the locket around her neck as it did any time her thoughts turned to her parents.

The pair fell into a silence for the next few moments, and Emma's head lolled towards the window again and she noticed that the highway was beginning to give way into the greenery and gradually, she was noticing more trees coming into view than she had seen in a long time.

August smiled at just how fascinated she looked and when he looked back towards to the road he saw the sign he had been waiting hours to see and said, "welcome to Storybrooke Emma."

* * *

"I think that she should have your room," Zelena commented casually, pretending to be interested in the magazine in her hand, though she hadn't really been paying attention to it since her sister had come into her room.

"We have four guest rooms…." Regina shot back while rolling her eyes, "why would she get my room?"

"Because it's decorated. Mom said that she wants her to feel as at home as possible…would you really want your room to be a guest room?"

"It would be her room…it's not like mom and dad can't afford to decorate it for her…" the brunette replied, "why are we talking about this anyway?"

"Because you came into my room and randomly sat at my desk, I thought that it would be nice to talk about something…maybe we can talk about the fact that you don't want this girl to live here?"

Regina clenched her jaw and thought to say that she was wrong, but her older sister always knew what was bothering her, especially when it was so selfish that she would never mention it to her parents.

"You don't want to have to look after her at school, right?" the red-head asked, taking the younger girl's silence as confirmation, "come on, Gina, have a little bit of compassion."

"But…what if she's…" Regina began, trying to pick the correct word, though she knew exactly what her word choice would be if she were at school with the other cheerleaders.

"A dork?"

The brunette just shrugged in confirmation and watched as her sister shook her head, almost in disappointment, though she knew that the expression would have been far worse if she had voiced her worries to her mother.

"It's not fair if I have to spend all of my time with her, I have a reputation to uphold and that's going to be difficult when I have some random girl following me around…"

"Well I'm sure that if you're going to act like this, mom will just get her a different buddy. In fact, she knows you so well that she probably already has…"

"Are you calling me selfish?" Regina asked with narrowed eyes.

"You're oddly perceptive for a cheerleader," Zelena laughed, causing her younger sibling to narrow her eyes further.

Before the brunette could even think of a defence, she heard the faint sound of her father calling each of his children's names and she sighed heavily when she recognised what that meant.

Silently, both sisters stood up and made their way towards the stairs.

A few moments later, they each stepped down into the foyer and Zelena couldn't help but smirk when she saw her mother messing with Henry Jr's hair as she always did when she was nervous. The boy never used to mind it so much, but considering that he was thirteen now, he was trying as hard as possible to try and move out of arms reach.

Finally, the woman noticed that her other two children had finally come down and she moved away from her youngest, "she will be here any second now…"

"Calm down, dear," Henry Sr. chuckled, coming over to place his arm around his wife's shoulder, "it will all be okay."

"But what if she doesn't like lasagne? I should have asked if she likes lasagne…"

The oldest Henry chuckled again and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, "you have nothing to worry about, we have hours until dinner, and who doesn't like lasagne?"

"I bet she wasn't even this nervous when she found out she was pregnant," Zelena mumbled as she went over to lean against the nearest wall.

"There is a whole genre of books for babies," Cora shot back, causing her eldest child to roll her eyes dramatically.

"I'm sure that if you hadn't decided to do this so quickly, you would have had time to find a book," the red-head replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

Cora shook her head in exasperation. She knew that her children were not exactly ecstatic about the prospect of having a stranger live in their house for the foreseeable future. It wasn't that they didn't care about what the girl had been through, it was just that she knew that children naturally did not like change and this was one hell of a change to have thrust upon them. She had honestly been surprised when her husband had agreed to what she had proposed after she had been unable to stop thinking about what had happened to that poor girl. None of her children generally watched the news, so she doubted that they could understand why she had been so insistent to do this, but she did fear that seeing this poor girl would show them exactly why she had to do this. If Emma wanted to share what had happened with the Mills children, then she could, but she refused to tell them and it didn't seem that any of them had bothered to Google it yet.

Before the mother could even think about scolding Zelena, the doorbell rang out and she quickly turned back to her youngest child to try and fix his hair, but he was already far out of reach and sighed deeply, trying to relax. She didn't want to make a bad first impression with the girl and she certainly didn't want to feel like she wasn't welcome here, which she certainly would by the expressions on her children's faces.

Clearing her throat loudly, she motioned for them to do what she wanted them to do and all three of them groaned as they pushed themselves off the wall and made themselves look presentable.

Cora looked at each of them in turn and decided that was probably the best it was going to get and took a deep breath before walking towards the door.

Her husband followed her and they exchanged a look, before she reached forward to clasp the door handle. After a brief hesitation, she turned it and pulled the door open.

As she did so, two familiar faces came into view and the male of the pair returned the smile, while the teenage blonde clutched the strap of her duffel closer to her body and stared adamantly at the ground. Her eyes instantly fell to the cast on her left arm and she felt her stomach clench as she imagined how she must have looked before she had spent a couple of months at the hospital, she also couldn't help that she still looked rather on the skinny side.

"Hello Mr Booth," she said, before turning her attention to the blonde, "Miss Swan…Emma."

Emma just nodded without looking up and let go of her bag strap to push her glasses further up her nose, "hello Mr and Mrs Mills," she mumbled.

"Please, dear, call us Henry and Cora," Henry Sr. said, offering her a smile that she still didn't look up to see.

Cora and Henry exchanged a look again, as the awkwardness of the moment started to become oppressive and they both looked up to August pleadingly.

The social worker offered them a look that silently said this was completely normal and he minutely nudged Emma, who finally looked up, gave them a forced smile, before she looked back down at the ground.

August looked at her for a moment, knowing that was more than he could expect from her and said, "I'll be back in a few weeks to check up on you, Em," he assured, and smiled when he saw her relax. It always made him happy just how much she trusted him, but he only wished that he hadn't been taking a leave of absence during her time in her last foster home. She claimed that he had every right to get married and go on his honeymoon, but he still couldn't stop the guilt he felt, so he wished desperately that this home would work out.

"Okay," Emma mumbled and allowed the man to pull her into a quick side hug, before she tentatively stepped over the threshold as Cora and Henry took a step back to allow her to their home.

"Thank you, Mr. Booth, feel free to contact us at any time," Cora said, heavily sensing that he was reluctant to leave.

August relaxed slightly and nodded, offering Emma a quick wave before he turned on his heels and made his way back towards his car.

Emma watched him go for a moment, wishing that he could stay for a bit longer like he usually did, but she knew that he didn't actually have time to take her here but had insisted on doing so. He needed to get back to New York for his next appointment and she would hate for some kid to not have the chance to have him as their social worker.

Timidly, she sidestepped out of the way of the door in order to allow Henry Sr. to close it and she couldn't stop herself from taking in a deep breath of shock as she looked around the foyer. She was pretty sure that it was bigger than most of the houses she had been in, so she was sure that she couldn't even imagine what the rest of the house must look like.

Once her mind had finally processed what she was seeing, she allowed her eyes to roam over the three other people she realised she didn't know.

The three of them seemed to be standing in age order and, for reasons that she didn't really understand, she looked from the red-head to the youngest brunette first, before looking back to the girl in the middle.

Swallowing hard, her mind short circuited and she continued to stare at her for a moment. The girl was utterly beautiful and after a moment, she made a conscious effort to avert her eyes.

Regina blinked a few times as the emerald eyes looked away from her and she could practically feel Zelena smirking at her even though she refused to look at her. She had not expected this girl to be quite so breath taking and adorable at the same time. For a moment, she forgot about her worries about having to look after the girl at school, since all she could think was that it would mean she would get to spend more time with her. But then she remembered that she still didn't know anything about her and there was still a very strong chance that she would be a complete and utter dork.

Cora watched the moment curiously for a moment, but quickly disregarded it as nothing to worry about and said, "Emma, I would like you to meet my children. This is Zelena, Regina and Henry Jr."

Emma nodded, before she furrowed her brow and looked between the two Henrys.

"You can call me Hen," the younger Henry answered the question that she didn't ask.

The blonde nodded again and said, "okay."

The foyer fell into an awkward silence and Emma began letting rubbing the cast on her arm, which seemed to remind the matriarch of the day's to-do list and said, "would you like to go and pick your room?"

Emma frowned as she worked through the woman's words, seemingly trying to figure out if this was some kind of trick and finally she asked, "pick?"

Cora smiled sadly at her and replied, "we have four spare rooms, you are welcome to claim whichever one you wish as your own."

"I think that Regina should show her where they are, so you can check on the lasagne, mom," Zelena announced, which earned her a death glare from her younger sister.

Emma watched the exchange and felt her throat constrict. She wasn't shocked to discover that their children were not excited about the prospect of having her here and she was certainly used to be sent away after a few weeks for that very reason.

Henry Sr. inspected the newcomer's expression and turned his attention to his two daughters, giving them a warning look and they each looked at him apologetically when they realised just what they had done.

"I don't mind which room..." the blonde said.

Regina silently berated herself and replied, "the biggest one is the room next to mine…and it has the most closet space…I'll show you where it is if you want…"

Emma just nodded, not bothering to mention that she really didn't need a closet at all, since she had thought that Regina wouldn't really want her in the room next to hers. Even if she was doing it just not get in trouble with her parents, she was shocked that she had suggested it.

"Sure…thanks…"

The brunette teen motioned towards the stairs and the blonde looked over to the oldest pair in the room, who seemed just as shocked as she felt the Regina had been the one to extend an olive branch.

The blonde offered them a small smile and then walked forward to follow Regina.

The pair ascended the stairs in silence, and Emma's eyebrows shot up when she saw just how many doors there was. She had no idea how long it would take for her to get used to the idea of living in a mansion, in fact, she had a nagging feeling that she wouldn't actually live here long enough to find out.

Regina continued to lead the way in silence and walked up to the door next to her room and opened it, walking into the room.

Emma's mouth fell open and tried to take in the sight of the massive room that she didn't have to share. She was sure that in a group home, at least four people would be able to comfortably share in here, so it was hard to absorb the idea that it was all for her.

"You can stick stuff on the wall if you want…" Regina said awkwardly, wishing that she knew what she was supposed to say.

The blonde nodded and reached into her bag as she walked over to the bed and pulled a framed picture to place on the bedside table.

Regina watched the motion and cast a quick look at the image of the unfamiliar blond and brunette with a blonde girl between them. A lump rose in her stomach as it hit her just who they were and she asked, "your parents?"

Emma looked up at her, registering the tone of sympathy that she was very much used to and replied, "yeah, Mary Margaret and David Swan…"

The brunette nodded and said awkwardly, "you were a cute kid…"

The blonde tilted her head when she noticed a hue of blush adorn the girl's cheeks, but she just figured that any attraction the girl felt would disappear once she got to know just how socially awkward she was.

It was for this reason that she decided to just change the topic and said, "August said that I need to go to the hospital for an appointment…"

"Yeah…your appointment is in about half an hour…mom will take you..." Regina replied and looked at the cast on her arm. Instantly, she realised that she had no idea what had happened to the poor girl to have made her news-worthy. "The bathroom is just across the hall if you want the freshen up before you go…someone will call you down when it's time to go…"

"Thanks…" Emma said, placing the bag onto the bed before turning to offer the other girl a genuine smile.

Regina allowed her eyes to linger on that perfect smile for a moment, before she nodded and turned on her heels to go and inform her parents that one of them needed to let her know when they were ready to go.

* * *

Emma bounced her knee up and down as she had every other time she had ever been in a hospital. She had thought that after all of the times she had seen the same clinical white walls, she would no longer feel nervous whenever she had to go to a hospital. However, being in a place like this usually meant that she would be going to a new family because the old one did something horrible to her.

This time was completely different though, because it wasn't August sitting next to her as she waited for the doctor to return with whatever news they had. This time it was Cora Mills who seemed intent on shooting her a reassuring smile at regular intervals.

"It's okay, dear," she said after she felt the silence become too much, "Dr Whale may not have the most sensitive exterior, but he is an excellent doctor…"

The blonde nodded and tried to smile back at the woman who was really trying, but she found that it came off as too forced, so she just looked back down at her cast.

The mayor managed to stop herself from blowing out a breath of frustration and tried to remind herself that this was only the first day that she had met the girl. It wasn't as if she could expect their relationship to be instantly what it was like with her children. She knew literally everything about Zelena, Regina and Henry Jr, but the new addition to their family was almost a blank slate. All she truly knew about the girl was the horrifying stories of what had happened to her and it wasn't as if she had every detail either. She didn't know her favourite colour, what she liked to do in her spare time. Hell, she hardly even knew the sound of her voice considering she had only heard her utter a few words.

The brunette silently wished that she knew what she could say to the girl to make sure she knew that she would do anything to make her part of her family, but she supposed that actions spoke louder than words. She couldn't imagine how many times Emma had believed that she would be staying with a family forever, only to be sent away to the next one. She had been informed that the longest she had ever gotten to stay somewhere was eight months and she would make it her personal mission to make sure that she got to stay with the Mills family for as long as she needed.

Cora was about to open her mouth to once again try and break the ice, but she was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Looking up, she offered Whale a professional nod and looked at him expectantly.

The doctor looked between the pair for a moment, before he said, "we've ran all of your blood work, Miss Swan and everything appears to be normal…the x-ray on your arm shows that it is healing nicely and you should be able to have the cast off in about two weeks. I would suggest a couple sessions of physiotherapy afterwards to ensure that it is at one hundred percent, but other than that I would say that you're more than ready to go back to school as soon as madam mayor deems to be appropriate."

The blonde clenched her jaw slightly at the word 'school', which caused Cora to quirk an eyebrow, but other than that the girl just nodded to tell him that she understood.

Whale continued to look at her for a moment, before he looked over to the woman next to her to confirm that he probably wouldn't be getting a verbal response.

When Cora nodded, he returned the nod and took as permission to take his leave.

"It was very nice meeting you, Miss Swan, I'll have someone call your…er…I'll have someone call Mrs Mills to arrange another check-up in about a fortnight…"

Emma just nodded again and he turned on his heels to walk over to the nurses' station.

The blonde moved her hand over to her cast in an attempt to scratch a very persistent itch, but she was stopped by a hand lightly being placed on her arm.

Cora frowned when the girl flinched and she instantly felt guilty for being so thoughtless, "do you not want to go to school?" she asked softly.

Emma took in a deep breath and replied, "I…no it's fine…"

"I hear that you have been doing all of your work by yourself rather successfully…I see no reason why you cannot continue to do so while you get settled in town. You will have to go once your cast is off…" she said.

The blonde blinked a few times as she tried to work through the woman's words. She was so used to being told that she had to go to school almost as soon as she came to a new foster home that she had never thought that she would be allowed to study from home until she would be more comfortable. People didn't usually care all that much about her comfort.

"I..." Emma began, though she had no idea what she could say to show the woman just how considerate she was being, so she decided to just go with, "thank you."

"I will need to have a meeting with Principle Gold to organise it and I'm sure that he would still want to meet you before you officially start your classes. But I can't really see him objecting considering your perfect GPA."

Emma just nodded her agreement. She had been expecting to be sent to a new school tomorrow and she had to admit that she was very much relieved that she wouldn't have to. Even if she was more than used to starting a new school, that didn't mean that she would ever enjoy the experience. Even more so now that people may have heard about her on the news, at least without the cast on she would be far less conspicuous.

Cora smiled at her before a thought occurred to her and she said, "can I ask you a question?"

The teen cringed slightly as she inspected the slightly worried expression on the mayor's face. In that moment, she couldn't stop the thought that there was something bothering the woman, which usually meant that it was only a matter of time before she decided to reconsider her rash decision to foster a child.

"Yeah…" she said cautiously.

"Do you like lasagne?"

 **More?**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

"Is she weird?"

Regina closed her eyes in frustration as she set her lunch tray down on the table. She had told Kathryn and Ruby that she would discuss the new addition to the Mills family later because she really didn't know what she could say about her.

After Emma had come back from the doctor's, they had all experienced a rather tense dinner, since no one really knew what they could say to the girl. It wasn't as if the blonde was all too willing to say anything to start a conversation either, so most of the dinner had been spent in silence, other than Henry Jr lamenting about the newest edition of whatever comic book he had been reading. Regina could have sworn that she had seen a sparkle of interest in Emma's eyes when the topic of Marvel had been brought up, but it was almost as if she wouldn't dare to speak.

The brunette girl situated herself at the table as she regally took her seat next to Kathryn.

Scowling at the blonde who had asked the question, she replied exasperatedly, "what?"

"That new girl…I thought that she would be coming to school today so we could see for herself…"

Regina shrugged and tried not to allow herself to think about just how much she hadn't wanted to show the girl around before she had met her. If anyone asked her now, she would still claim that there was no way that she wanted to babysit the blonde, but the truth was different. The moment that Emma had crossed the threshold of the mansion, Regina couldn't help but think that she was so adorable in a very awkward, shy kind of way. If the bespectacled blonde acted with some more confidence, she had no doubt that she could be considered hot.

"My mom is letting her come to school after her arm is healed in a couple weeks…"

Kathryn nodded and replied, "you didn't answer my first question…is she weird?"

Regina rolled her eyes and sighed deeply as she finally looked away from her food and between her friends. Ruby didn't seem quite as interested in the situation as Kathryn was, but she still tilted her head as the conversation continued, even if she seemed to be focused on eating her food.

"I guess so…" Regina shrugged again, trying to ignore the guilt churning in her stomach as she insulted Emma. She knew that she could easily defend her, but she also knew that it wasn't what her friend wanted to hear, "she doesn't really talk."

"Would you want to talk if you suddenly had to deal with having Regina as your foster sister?" Ruby asked with a smirk as she looked between the blonde and brunette.

"You're hilarious as ever, Rubes," the head cheerleader scowled.

"I try," she chuckled, "but seriously, don't you think that we should be giving her a break? It's not easy to be the new kid, especially in Storybrooke."

"You're such a kill joy," Kathryn sighed dramatically.

"Maybe I'm just a nice person, unlike…" before Ruby could finish her sentence, a potato chip hit her in the face and she instantly picked up something random off her plate to return fire.

Regina grabbed her arm to stop the retaliation and she held up her hand to stop whatever Kathryn was planning to do, "you two are such children."

The brunette looked between her two friends and when she saw signs that their little war was over, she released Ruby's arm.

The three of them fell into silence before she the blonde asked, "is she creepy?"

Regina closed her eyes in frustration and she decided to just ignore the question. It wasn't as if anything she could say would stop the ridicule that she would be facing when she eventually had her first day at Storybrooke High.

* * *

Emma allowed the music from the radio to flow through the air as she eyes moved quickly over the words on the page.

Her eidetic memory meant that she was literally incapable of failing a subject as long as she at least looked at the material once. She knew that she had every reason to not even try when it came to school since she could just stare at the page and easily get an A. However, she found that school was the one thing that gave her some kind of consistency. Even if she hadn't actually stayed in the same school for more than eight months, it gave her an escape from the life she had led. No matter how shitty things got, she knew that she had something that every other child got.

Even if her foster parents almost never brought her all the books that she would need, as the Mills had before she had even arrived, she had always made sure that she would find a way to try and study something, even if it wasn't strictly on the curriculum. She tended to spend most of her time in the local library, so she had to admit that it was rather nice to actually be able to sit on a ridiculously comfortable bed while she worked.

A knock at the door brought her away from the words of the AP chemistry textbook and she looked up to see Cora standing at the door holding a plate in one hand a sealed parcel under the other arm.

"May I come in?" she asked with a small smile on her face as she wondered whether she would ever find any of her children happily studying when they had been given permission to not go to school.

Emma nodded quickly as her eyes moved between the objects in the woman's hands. She had already been given about ten books that morning after Cora had a meeting with the principle to confirm the classes that she would be attending in a couple of weeks. Most people would have been overwhelmed by the very long list of catch up that she would have to do in order to be allowed to stay in the advanced classes, but Emma was actually excited. In fact, she had already hand written two of the assignments from the list.

Cora crossed the threshold and allowed her eyes to flit around the room quickly. She resolved to have the room decorated as soon as possible, but she knew that what she was about to give the girl would probably freak her out slightly, so she decided that she would be better off holding off on that until the blonde was slightly more comfortable living in the mansion. She also knew that the girl would probably need some new clothing, which she decided would be something that either Regina or Zelena could deal with if she gave them her credit card.

"I brought you some lunch," she said with a smile as she presented the plate with the sandwich placed up it.

Emma furrowed her brow for a moment as she looked over to the clock on the nightstand to discover that it was in fact twelve o'clock. She hadn't even noticed that so many hours had passed since she had picked up the first book and she also didn't notice that her stomach was grumbling slightly, crying out in hunger.

"Thanks," she said as she stood from the bed to accept the plate. She was about to sit back down, but she frowned as she looked at the sheets that were probably more expensive than anything she had brought with her to the mansion.

"It's your bed, dear, you can eat on it if you want," the older woman chuckled lightly.

The blonde relaxed slightly and sat back down among all of the paper and books and placed the plate down next to her, "thanks…"

"You don't have to thank me for everything," Cora said as softly as possible, it was as if Zelena, Regina or Henry thanked her for every little thing that she did.

"Sor…"

"And you certainly don't have to apologise for anything," she quickly added with a raised hand.

Emma opened her mouth to apologise, but she hastily thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut before nodding vigorously.

"Principle Gold called a few minutes ago, he informed me that he can wait until next week to meet you since you have already met your buddy…"

The blonde furrowed her brow, but her stomach twisted in worry as it occurred to her what she meant, "Regina?"

"Is that a problem, dear?" Cora asked, her face pinching as she wondered whether she should change the arrangement. "I know that Regina can be quite intimidating…"

Emma quickly shook her head and said, "no…honestly it's fine…" hoping that the woman wouldn't be able to tell that the thought of spending more time with Regina was bothering her because of how gorgeous she found her to be.

Cora tilted her head, clearly trying to figure it out, but she didn't know her well enough to discern exactly what her expression meant. She decided to just push it aside and resolved to talk with Regina later about making sure that she would be a good buddy.

A silence passed between them and Cora briefly just why she had come into the room before it occurred to her that she still had the slightly heavy box under her arm.

Stepping forward, she motioned for the blonde to take it from her, which the girl promptly did with a curious frown.

"What's this?" Emma asked in confusion, obviously she didn't think that it was actually for her.

"There is one way to find out," Cora chuckled.

The blonde nodded slowly as she reached over to grab the key on the bedside table that she had been given earlier. It didn't take her long to slice through the packing tape and put the key back onto the table.

Cora looked on in excitement as the girl gingerly ripped open the parcel and slowly pulled out the box inside of it.

Emma's mouth fell open as she realised just what it was as she pulled it out by the plastic handle. The box was almost completely white, save for the picture of an apple on the sides and the image of a closed laptop below the words 'MacBook Pro'.

The girl continued to stare at it blankly for about thirty seconds and the mayor shifted awkwardly, before she explained, "I wanted this to come with the rest of your school supplies, but there was apparently some delivery issue. With the volume of work, you have, I believe that a laptop is the only logical solution. You can't reasonably be expected to handwrite all of your assignments and the computers in the library are unfortunately outdated…"

Emma continued to simply stare at the image as she took in what she had just been given with no strings attached. Her first instinct was to be suspicious. If Cora truly had only fostered her in order to gain favour in later elections, then it would make perfect sense that she would try and buy her a lot of things almost as an incentive to make her look good in the media. But at the same time, she could tell that the woman was obviously well off. Perhaps she just didn't understand that Emma would never have even dreamed of having a device like this since she often lived with families who used fostering as a source of income.

"I…" she started, but she found that there were just no words.

Cora watched the many emotions cross over her face and felt her stomach twist in guilt. She knew that it wasn't her fault that the blonde was so naturally suspicious of everything she was given, but she still couldn't stop herself for feeling bad. Her eyes briefly moved over to the image of the deceased Swans sat on the bedside table and she swallowed hard.

"Eat your lunch first dear and then you can set it up and start on more of your assignments. It would be in your best interest to try and do as much catch up as you can before your first day at school."

Emma just nodded her agreement as she continued to stare at the box that she couldn't quite believe was hers.

"Tha…" she began to say, but she quickly thought better of it, which caused the older woman to smile broadly.

"You can say thank you for some things," she chuckled.

The blonde actually let out a small laugh at that, she knew that she did thank people more than others did, but the fact was that there wasn't much she expected people to just give her, so she always felt the need to say 'thank you' at every opportunity.

"Thank you," she replied as she practically hugged the box with her good arm.

"You're very welcome, dear, oh and I'm going to ask Regina to take you clothes shopping, is that okay?"

Emma frowned slightly and wondered when the last time that she had been shopping was. She was usually just given hand-me-downs.

"Er…yeah…that would be okay…" she said after a moment of thought, even if her throat did constrict at the thought of spending time with Regina. Plus, she couldn't help but think that the brunette wouldn't be too happy about having to spend the day with the new dork. Even if she had yet to attend Storybrooke High, she had no doubt that the girl was popular, after all, why the hell wouldn't she be?

"Are you sure?" Cora asked cautiously.

Emma just nodded as she lightly placed the box down next to her, being as careful as humanly possible.

"Okay," the mayor replied as she looked around the room for a second and tried to figure out if there was anything she had forgotten. After the silence stretched on, Cora decided that it was about time that she left the girl to her studies and said, "well it appears that you probably have even more work to do than I do. I'll leave you to it, but if you need anything I'll be just down the stairs in my study."

The blonde nodded and smiled at the older woman before she turned on her heels and made her way to the door.

Once Emma was alone, she looked between the sandwich and the MacBook. Though she knew that she wouldn't be able to let go of her suspicion right now, she couldn't help but allow herself to smile to herself for at least a few seconds.

* * *

Henry Jr bit the inside of his cheek as he stood outside of the room that he had once seen as just the guest room. He had wanted to talk to Emma the day before, but he could also tell that she was probably just as shy as he was, so trying to talk to her with other people around would probably be very unhelpful to actually building some kind of friendship.

The thirteen-year-old shifted from foot-to-foot as he thought about what he wanted to ask her. He couldn't help but think that it was too much to ask of someone who was actually a complete stranger, but at the same time, he was having a difficult time imagining that she would say no.

Steeling his nerves, he decided that the worst she could say was 'no' and so he raised his arm up to rap on the door. He waited for about ten seconds, before he heard a muffled 'come in' from inside the room and he timidly opened the door.

He stood in the crack of the door as he looked around the room and smiled at the girl sat cross-legged on the bed before he allowed his eyes to drift to what she was surrounded by. She had the MacBook open in front of her as well as about three books at her side as well as one in her lap. He felt his mouth go dry slightly as he wondered whether he would ever be able to take in that amount of information at a time.

"Hey," he said timidly.

Emma blinked a few times before she smiled at him reassuringly, "I thought it would be your mom…"

"Does she come in here a lot?" Henry asked, with a small smirk as he thought about his mother freaking out slightly about the girl's comfort, even if it was rather obvious that she was more than comfortable in her little fortress of academia.

The blonde shrugged and used her good hand to close the book in her lap and shifted it so it was next to her, she then closed the laptop and replied, "only a couple times…she brought me lunch and then came back to get the plate…"

Henry nodded and wondered briefly how many times the mayor had actually wanted to come and check on her, but had forced herself not to and he said, "that's actually pretty good for her…my dad said that she tried to check on Zelena during her first day at school about six times…"

Emma actually smiled at that, but there was a certain sadness behind it that Henry couldn't quite understand.

He shifted uncomfortably for a second, before he asked, "I was wondering whether I could ask you something…you don't have to say yes, but it would be completely awesome if you say yes…"

The girl looked at the rambling boy in shock for a few moments before she nodded and motioned for him to come further into the room.

The brunette hesitated for a second, but he quickly crossed the threshold and walked over to the stand further into the room and he crossed his arms over his chest nervously.

"What's up?" she asked, pushing her glasses further up her nose as she inspected his worried expression and she wondered what could possibly make him feel like that.

"Mom asked me to help unpack all of your school books before you came yesterday…I swear that I couldn't even understand a sentence in any of them…" he said and as he continued to shift nervously.

"You are thirteen…" Emma frowned, hoping that she wouldn't insult him.

Henry nodded and sighed, "it's not that…it's just…" he cut himself off and looked up at the green eyes that actually held concern and he suddenly felt suddenly better. He didn't feel like she would judge him for what he was about to say, "I've been doing really bad at school, so they tested me and found out that I have dyslexia…I know it's not an excuse or anything and my mom has tried to find people to help me cope with it but nothing seems to work. I thought maybe…if you want to I mean…you could tutor me since you're like a genius and you obviously really like school…"

The blonde furrowed her brow and looked over to the amount of books that surrounded her, before she looked back to him, "why would I be better than professionals?"

"I…don't know how to explain it really…it's like since my mom didn't hire you to help me and she wouldn't know that I'm being tutored, there won't be as much pressure to do better…"

"Your parents wouldn't know?" Emma asked.

Henry nodded vigorously, trying to show just how important that part was, "I know that they would never admit it out loud, but I think they're worried about me. I won't get into college if my grades don't improve and I'm sick of being in the class with the people who don't even care. I really do try, but nothing seems to work. I understand if you don't want to help me…"

Emma nodded slowly as she considered his explanation. Since she had never had an issue at school, pressure was never really something that she'd had to face. Her perfect GPA was pretty much the only easy thing in her life.

"I can try and help…but I've never tutored anyone before…"

Henry ignored the implication that she didn't think that she would be good at it, since he had no doubt that she would be able to help him for some reason.

"Awesome!" he exclaimed excitedly, "I'm sorry that I can't pay you anything for tutoring me, but I was thinking…at dinner last night you seemed really interested in comics…are you a Marvel fan?"

The blonde frowned for a second as she tried to figure out how he had come to that realisation, she wasn't really used to people wanting to find out more about her, so she didn't think that anyone had been looking at her while she tried to eat.

"I…I've read a few comics when the library had them, but I've never gotten to read a full story arc…"

"I have like every issue since 2009…you can borrow whichever ones you want whenever you want to…who's your favourite?"

"Spiderman…" she said after a moment of consideration.

Henry smiled at this and replied, "good choice…I can borrow you like ten issues at a time and if you want more, you can tell me and I'll give you the next ten…"

Emma raised her eyebrows at him and couldn't help but smile at how excited he seemed to be.

"That would be okay," she chuckled lightly, "what exactly do you need tutoring in?"

"Everything," the boy blushed and looked down at his feet, "I'm fine at math but I'm not doing that great…but I'm completely failing English…"

The blonde nodded without a hint a judgement and she said, "do you have a syllabus?"

Henry frowned as he thought back to all of the pieces of paper he was given at the start of the year, he had no idea where he could have possibly put them.

"You can e-mail your teachers and ask for one," she chuckled after looking at the concentration on his face.

"I'll go and do that right now," he said rather excitedly, "thanks Emma, you're the best."

Emma watched him go and it wasn't until her door shut that she realised she had a massive smile plastered on her face.

 **A/N Hope you guys enjoyed :)**

 **I would love to hear what you thought XD**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

Zelena pulled into the nearest parking space and looked over her shoulder to the blonde in the back seat.

It had been four days since Emma had arrived at the Mills household and Cora had decided that it was time that the girl left her little cocoon of academics. The mayor had asked if she would be willing to go to the mall with Regina and Zelena to buy some new clothes. Emma had agreed to go, but Cora had still proceeded to go and lecture her two daughters about how important this could be. They had promised that they would do all they could to make the blonde feel comfortable and maybe lay the groundwork so that Emma would start interacting with more than just Henry Jr. Of course, Cora had been more than thrilled to discover that Henry and Emma had seemingly bonded over comic books, but it didn't really help with her concern about the girl's impending first day at Storybrooke High School.

So far, their mother's orders were proving to be far more difficult than she had made it see at the time. Granted, Zelena was doing far more to try and make Emma comfortable, by asking her questions every so often, mostly about what she was studying, but it didn't seem to be helping. She knew that it was because of a certain brunette's presence in the car. Regina had basically been texting since she had walked downstairs to get to the car and she could tell that it was doing nothing to help achieve what their mother had asked them to.

It was for this reason that the red-head quickly reached over and snatched the device out of her younger sister's hands, which earned her a look of complete and utter shock.

"What the hell was that for?!" Regina exclaimed.

At the sudden sound, Emma looked up from her lap to see the younger of the two Mills staring at her sister with an expression between shock and confusion. She couldn't help but smirk at the triumphant grin Zelena was sending back.

"You can text Daniel later, Gina, mom said that you have to get some school supplies for yourself anyway, so you should really be focusing," the red-head replied as she placed the device into the glove box.

"It doesn't take my full attention to pick up a few notebooks and some pens," Regina huffed as she crossed her arms.

Zelena tried to take in a deep and calming breath. She knew exactly what she actually wanted to say in that moment, but it was very well like she could just come out with 'stop ignoring Emma or we'll get in trouble'.

It was for this reason that she instead tried to silently convey her message, which didn't seem to work as the brunette continued to look at her with a dumbfounded expression. The red-head rolled her eyes deeply and shot a quick look over to Emma to see if she was aware what was happening. She relaxed slightly when she saw the amusement on teen's face. Obviously she must be used to this kind of thing, statistically she had probably been in a home that had someone as self-absorbed as Regina before. She just couldn't help but wish that the brunette could at least realise what she was doing wrong right now.

"You can have it back when we come back," Zelena said resolutely as she moved to open her car door.

Regina dramatically huffed while she did the same and Emma decided that she could just watch the moment for a few more seconds before she moved to do the same. She could clearly tell that Zelena was trying hard to try and make her feel comfortable, but she didn't understand that constantly asking someone questions was not the best way to do so. Of course, having people who tried too hard was much better than some of the alternatives that she had experienced in her life, so she really couldn't think of anything to complain about. Plus, in that moment, all she could actually think about was just how adorable Regina had looked when she was acting so childish.

A moment passed and she used her good hand to reach over and let herself out to find Regina standing next to her sister, refusing to make eye contact with her arms crossed.

Emma looked over to Zelena who was shooting daggers at her and she wondered just how long this could go on for.

The blonde shift from foot to foot and asked, "so which way do we go?"

Regina tilted her head and looked over to the huge structure that was the mall, which was obviously the direction that they would be going in. She was about to come out with some sarcastic comment, but she quickly realised that the girl had simply asked because she didn't want to spend her time awkwardly standing in a parking lot while she and Zelena silently argued over a phone that was so clearly taken unfairly.

So, the brunette attempted a genuine smile, despite the mood her sister had put her in, and lightly gestured in the direction of the mall.

Ten minutes later of walking in almost complete silence, the three of them stood in front of map of the mall and Zelena asked, "do you have any preferred stores?"

Emma allowed her eyes to roam over the list and she wondered whether she had ever even heard of half of them. There were a few families that had taken her shopping when she had first come to them, but none of them were even close to be as rich as the Mills family, so it wasn't as if she had any choice in what shops they took her to. She had just been grateful to get something that wasn't a hand-me-down.

"I…I'm not sure…"

Regina took in a deep breath and Zelena shot her another dirty look before she looked back at the list and asked, "do you mind if I choose for you? I think I know what you would like…"

The blonde's eyes widened slightly and she couldn't stop the blush that started to creep up her cheeks. She quickly nodded knowing that there was no way that she would be able to verbalise her consent without stuttering.

Zelena quirked an eyebrow and briefly wondered whether Regina had spent nearly enough time with Emma to know what she likes. In fact, she knew that the brunette hadn't really seen the girl at any other times than at dinner and they certainly hadn't exchanged words since the first day that Emma had arrived.

Regina brought her bottom lip into her mouth in concentration as her eyes roamed over the list of stores and she kept intermediately glancing over to Emma while she mentally went through what could be found in each of the establishments.

"Okay I have an idea," she finally said just before the silence became oppressive.

Without explaining further, the brunette began to walk in the direction of her chosen store and Emma furrowed her brow curiously before she and Zelena began to follow the cheerleader.

It wasn't long until the three of them were stood in front of Hot Topic and Zelena looked over to her sister questioningly while Emma inspected the clothing articles on display in the window.

When Regina noticed Zelena's gaze, she shrugged and said, "she gives off a nerdy hipster vibe."

The red-head raised her eyebrows and looked over to Emma to see if she was at all insulted, but then she realised that the blonde probably hadn't even heard what Regina had said. Instead, she seemed to be slightly shocked, which must mean that she was more than surprised that the brunette had actually chosen correctly.

A moment passed as they all just stood there before Regina rolled her eyes and began to walk towards the entrance, "can we please get this over with?" she asked, gesturing towards the door, "I have other stuff to do today."

Emma frowned, but quickly pushed aside the feeling of disappointment in her stomach. She knew that Regina was reluctant to spend time with her, but it didn't make her feel as dejected as she had when her foster siblings didn't want to spend their time with her. She knew that it wasn't because she was the weird orphan girl, but rather it was because she was a socially-awkward dork. It was strange that she couldn't find it in herself to be too insulted, but somehow having a cheerleader act such a way towards her made her feel more normal than she had since she could remember.

It was for this reason that she offered Zelena a small smile of reassurance when she looked over at her worriedly and she proceeded to walk towards the store.

Ten minutes later, Regina leaned against a wall and pretended to be interested in one of her nails while Zelena stood next to her with her arms crossed as her eyes flicked over to the blonde who was inspecting a t-shirt decorated with an image of the Evil Queen.

"How much do we have to help her get?" Regina sighed, obviously already impatient after just five minutes.

"I don't know…" the red-head shrugged, "I'm pretty sure that she only had like five outfits…so I'm guessing that she needs a lot, why do you have somewhere you need to be?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm supposed to be meeting some people at the diner. You act like you want to spend your Saturday waiting for her to pick clothes…"

Zelena rolled her eyes and shook her head at the same time. She had never quite understood how Regina could find a way to be so rude at all times without looking like a complete bitch. It wasn't as if she had actually done anything horrible to their new foster sister, but at the same time, it wasn't as if she had gone out of her way to try and make Emma feel welcome in their home.

"It isn't going to take that long, she doesn't exactly seem like the picky type," she replied as she turned her attention to Emma looking through a rack of clothes. The blonde was smiling at whatever she was looking at but it didn't escape the red-head's attention that she had yet to actually pick anything up.

"Stay here," she muttered before she went over to the blonde.

Regina rolled her eyes deeply at her sister's back and continued to pretend to be interested in her nails whilst Zelena actually went to pick stuff off the rack that she had noticed Emma looking at. She knew that it couldn't be easy to go into a new home and have complete strangers buy you things, but she was also slightly annoyed that the blonde was taking so long. It wasn't that she didn't want to help the girl, it was just that she couldn't see how her being there could possibly be at all helpful, Zelena seemed to be better at that stuff anyway. She had thought about going to talk to Emma over the past few days, but she had stopped herself each time when she realised that she had nothing to say, it wasn't like constantly checking on her was going to make her feel more comfortable in the mansion, after all, she knew that she would go crazy if her mother came to talk to her as often as she did with Emma.

She had decided that she could wait until she would have to be the blonde's buddy to try talking to her, not that she wanted to think about why the idea of talking to her made her throat constrict slightly. She had known that she was attracted to her the moment she had seen Emma cross the threshold of her home, but nothing had happened to make that initial crush fade. She had noticed Emma and Henry seemed to spend a lot of time together and she couldn't help but feel ridiculous for being jealous of her thirteen-year-old brother. Just because he had something in common with Emma and had actually gone to talk to her about it, she was sure that she could go and have a conversation about Marvel if she really wanted to. So she decided that she would just try and maintain indifference until her crush faded, that was what usually happened when she met someone that she found attractive.

"Regina?"

The brunette blinked out of her deep thoughts and forced herself to stop covertly trying to look at Emma, before she turned around to see who had called her name.

Instantly, she sighed deeply and shook her head, "Kathryn? Why are you here?"

The blonde shrugged with a smirk playing across her lips as she looked at a random piece of clothing, "I like this store…"

"So why have I never seen you wear anything from here?" the brunette asked sceptically.

"Because…" Kathryn tried, but Regina cut her off with a raised hand.

"You saw me coming in here with Emma didn't you?" she sighed.

"You know me so well," the other girl laughed as she came over to stand next to her friend, openly looking over to the rack where Zelena was showing Emma some jeans.

"She's kind of cute…"

Regina secretly swallowed hard and hid her slight blush by looking down at the ground. After a few seconds, she managed to will the crimson hue to disappear and she looked back up to her friend with a shrug, "I guess so…I hadn't really noticed."

Kathryn raised an eyebrow at her for a second as she tried to figure out why her friend seemed to be being so defensive. However, she quickly dropped it when she sensed two people approaching from behind her.

Turning around, she smiled at the two approaching people, both of whom had a pile of clothes in their arms, which the blonde was frowning at.

A smile spread across the cheerleader's face and Regina resisted the urge to throw her head into her hands and groan deeply.

"You must be Emma," Kathryn practically squealed, which caused the girl's eyes to widen as all of her muscles tensed at the same time.

Zelena looked at her sister's friend cautiously before she looked over to Regina with narrowed eyes. For a moment, she thought that the brunette had somehow called her here, but then occurred to her that she had taken her phone and they hadn't known what store they would be going to until after that had happened. Plus, there was the fact that she was in no way surprised that Kathryn would find them just so that she could know the latest gossip.

"Hey Kathryn," Zelena said after a moment.

Said girl offered the red-head a quick wave before she turned back to Emma with an expectant look.

Emma swallowed hard, anxiety was seeping out of all of her pores and she mumbled, "yeah…"

"I've heard so much about you!" Kathryn exclaimed.

The blonde raised her eyebrows and shot a look over to Regina who was shaking her head in exasperation.

"Well I haven't heard that much really, Regina is pretty stingy," she laughed, nudging the brunette in amusement.

Emma tilted her head and tried to figure out what Regina's death glare was supposed to mean, but she decided that she would just brush this off and looked down at her feet, willing this girl to stop drawing attention to her.

"What happened to your arm?" Kathryn blurted out after a moment.

Zelena and Regina both gave her withering looks, which she didn't seem to notice.

The blonde looked down at her casted arm and felt her mouth go dry as images passed through her mind. She took a couple deep calming breaths, as the psychiatrist at the hospital had told her to do, and she just continued to look at her feet, hoping that the other girl would understand that she wouldn't be getting an answer.

"Where did you live before here? Do you think it's weird that the mayor fostered you? Is it awful living with Regina?"

"Okay," Regina said louder than necessary as she came forward and grabbed her friend's forearm, "I think that's enough questions, Kath."

The blonde pouted at the fact that she hadn't gotten any answers to the questions that some other cheerleaders had told her to ask. Her brunette friend rolled her eyes at her and looked over to her older sister as if asking permission for what she was about to do.

Zelena seemed to understand completely and she nodded as she said, "why don't you go with Kathryn to get your school stuff? Me and Emma can go to Old Navy to get the rest of her clothes…"

Regina tried to shoot Emma an apologetic look as she dragged a reluctant Kathryn out of the store.

The red-head blew out a breath and looked over to Emma whose ears were deeply red and was still refusing to look up and she lightly nudged her with her elbow to tell her that they were once again alone.

"Sorry about that, Kathryn can be unbelievable sometimes…she just wants something to tell people about the new girl and she has absolutely no filter…"

Emma nodded before she furrowed her brow before she thought aloud, "didn't Regina already tell them all about me?"

Zelena tilted her head for a moment but just shrugged and replied, "I guess not…we should probably get going, we've still got a lot to get and mom will kill me if we don't get all of it…"

 **A/N I hope you guys enjoyed XD and I would love to hear what you thought :)**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

Henry furrowed his brow as he continued to look at the page, before he let out a frustrated groan and threw his head into his hands.

"Why do we have to write essays anyway?" he sighed, his voice barely audible between his fingers.

Emma tilted her head at him for a moment and she replied with a shrug, "because we do, complaining about the work isn't going to help Henry…"

The brunette looked up at her, he was about to argue, but the words died on his tongue when it occurred to him that he wasn't in a classroom. He was sure that if it had been a teacher who had said that, he would have retorted without thinking and then would have been sent out. That would inevitably lead to his mother being called and then being grounded. Of course, he knew that Cora was more lenient on him than she would be on Regina or Zelena if they talked back to a teacher, because she understood that it was out of frustration, but that didn't mean that she could leave his actions unpunished. At this point, he was sick of the cycle that he seemed to be going through constantly and he knew that some part of him had hoped that Emma helping him would be an immediate fix, but he was quickly realising that he would still have to do all of the work.

"How do I know what to write about?" he sighed after a moment.

"You need to make sure that you read the question properly first, you can write the best essay in the world, but if it doesn't answer the question then the teacher can't give you any marks."

Henry nodded and looked once again at the words on the top of the sheet he had been given to make up for his bad grades so far this year. This would be the first of many and he was surprised that the teacher had even agreed to issue it to him, but the woman had been just as surprised when he had asked for it along with the syllabus.

"How are metaphors used in _To Kill a Mockingbird?"_ he read aloud, looking back up at Emma with a furrowed brow.

Emma tilted her head at the boy for a moment, before she picked up a pad of paper and handed it to him, "write down all of your ideas first…"

The brunette swallowed hard as he brought his pen to the paper and looked contemptuously at the novel sat on the bed between them. His pen stayed on the paper completely still for about five minutes, but Emma made no move to say anything as she simply waited. She knew that he had read the novel more than once since his parents had made sure he had all of the help he needed with reading, that really wasn't the issue. She had been slightly surprised at the programs on his computer that essentially read to you and allowed Henry to follow along on the page. Considering all of the books that she had seen in his room, she could tell that reading wasn't the problem, he obviously enjoyed it once he had found a way to make it easier. But that meant that she would need to help him find a way to make this part easier for him so that he could eventually start to see it as such a chore.

Eventually the boy looked up the blonde pleadingly and she reached out for the paper which he quickly handed over.

"Have you ever tried mind maps?" she asked as she set to work writing 'metaphors in _To Kill a Mockingbird_ ' in the centre of the page.

Henry shook his head with a furrowed brow as he looked over her shoulder to see what she was doing.

"Well I use them all the time…there's so much information in every subject, so there's no way that you can write a good essay if you try to force all of it in. But if you write down everything you know, you can figure out what would be the best things to write about. That way, you can just focus on maybe two or three things instead of all of it."

With that, she handed the paper back over to him.

Henry frowned for a moment with his pen hovering over the page, "so…I just…"

"Write down anything that comes to mind," the blonde replied, "even if you're not sure about it, just write it down."

The brunette swallowed hard, but it wasn't long before he was scribbling down all of the thoughts he had. Finally, the page was fairly full and he blinked at all of the words. He hadn't even realised that he knew that much about the book.

"Now what?" he asked, though the frustration had faded slightly from his voice.

"Now you need to pick the ideas that you find the most interesting. You can pick about two or three main ones and if any of the other ones are related to the main points you can highlight them as sub-points," she replied as she handed him three highlighters.

Henry stuck his tongue out slightly as he began doing as he was told and Emma briefly pictured Regina doing the same thing while she concentrated. She quickly looked down at her lap, hoping that Henry wouldn't see the blush that was creeping up her face.

A moment later, Henry looked up at his tutor and she handed him another piece of paper, "now write down all of the points you picked, draw a line off the main points to add any of the sub-points, that why you can see exactly what you're going to write about in the essay."

He once again did as he was told and Emma smiled broadly at the proud grin the boy was wearing as he looked down at what he had written.

"Okay…so now what?" he asked, his smile fading slightly when he realised that he would still have to write the essay.

"Point, evidence, explanation," she replied and when she received a confused expression she continued, "for each thing you've wrote down, you have to write a sentence to open your point, then put a quote to support it. Then you have to explain how the quote supports what you said."

Henry continued to frown and she smiled at him reassuringly, before she picked up a piece of paper that she'd had next to her.

The boy took it and blinked at all of the colours on the page but before he could open his mouth to question her, she pointed at her laptop and said, "I e-mailed the essay to you so you can use your computer to read along with it. Pink is point, green is evidence and blue is explanation. If you just read through that a few times, you should be able to see how to structure the essay. Just let me know when you're done and I'll show you how to plan the essay properly before you start writing it…"

The brunette nodded and allowed a smile to tug at the corner of his lips, before he said, "you'd make a really good teacher, you know?"

Emma just shrugged, looking down at her lap once again as she tried to stop herself from brushing off the compliment. She knew that school was the one thing that she excelled at and enjoyed. That, coupled with her eidetic memory, meant that she would most likely be a good teacher. But it felt amazing to actually have a chance to do it and she had to admit that she was looking forward to their next tutoring session so that she could feel that level of confidence again.

"So how about we meet after dinner? If you plan the essay today, you can spend the next couple days writing it and then I'll read it over before you submit it…"

Henry nodded vigorously, actually feeling excited to have been set some homework. He had known that he had wanted to have Emma as his tutor so that he didn't have to feel pressure, but he now he felt like he wanted to impress Emma just as much as his parents. But he also knew that she wouldn't be disappointed in him if he didn't do well straightaway and that she would probably think of another way to try and help him.

"Okay," he smiled as he stood from the bed, "do you need any more comics?"

Emma looked over to the growing pile on her desk across the room (which Cora had added to her room a few days ago) and she shook her head. Henry hadn't actually been taking back the comics that he borrowed to her so far, she shook her head and replied, "I think I'm good for a while…"

The boy smiled at her and grabbed the pieces of paper, and began walking towards the door.

He quickly slipped out of the room but cringed when he heard the next room's door also open at the same time. He automatically brought his mind maps and the highlighted essay to his chest and looked guiltily over to the brunette who had her eyes glued to her phone.

Regina seemed to realise that she wasn't alone in the hallway and her eyes snapped up from the device in her hand to look at her little brother. They stared at each other for a moment before Regina asked, "what are you doing?"

Henry swallowed hard and shook his head, "I was...just…taking some comics to Emma…"

"And she gave you…notes?" the older brunette asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"I asked to borrow some paper," Henry shot back before he scurried away, not giving his sister any more chance to question him.

Regina opened her mouth to say something else as she watched him go, but her phone let out a little ding and she just shrugged and looked down at it as she walked towards the stairs.

* * *

 _August leaned against the door frame and sighed deeply as he stared at the blonde teen lay in the bed while he adjusted the messenger bag strung over his shoulder to a more comfortable position._

 _His honeymoon had been the most peaceful three weeks of his life and he had loved every moment of it, but now he couldn't help but wish that he hadn't gone. If the agency wasn't so understaffed, he wouldn't have had to worry about the minors in his care, but the checks that were supposed to bed made weren't. He knew for certain that if he hadn't taken two months off work for all that came with getting married, then this would have never happened. He completely understood why his fiancé had suggested it since he had so many vacation days that he hadn't taken, but he was now being rather rudely reminded why he never took off more than a single week at a time._

 _That was why he had to return to find out that the neighbours of Emma Swan's foster parents had called the police and an ambulance when their suspicions had become too much for them to handle._

 _He couldn't imagine what it would have been like if he'd have come back and visited the week after as his schedule had dictated and no one had called for help. Emma's state was already difficult to take in and he was trying not to think about whether he would have been able to physically stomach if things had been worse._

 _"August?"_

 _The man blinked out of his thoughts and realised that Emma must have woken up. He quickly pushed himself off the doorframe and walked over to the bed._

 _"Hey," he said, trying not to allow his voice to shake at the bruising on her face, her broken nose caused a deep shade of purple to ring her unfocused eyes. He couldn't even imagine the intensity of the pain killers that she must have been on._

 _Emma's right hand immediately went to the cast on her left so that she could figure out what the new weight on her arm was. For a moment, she tried to remember the last thing that had happened to her, but her mind was somewhat blank in that moment._

 _"Where am I?" she asked hazily._

 _Her social worker smiled sadly at her and replied, "the hospital. You've been unconscious for about a week, you had to have a couple of surgeries…"_

 _The blonde nodded slowly, completely understanding exactly why she was here. In that moment, everything came back to her and she winced, which caused pain to ripple through her entire body despite pain killers pumping through her veins._

 _"What happened to the Chases?"_

 _August furrowed his brow for a moment, wondering just why she would be worried about the people who had hurt her so much, but then the reason occurred to him and he allowed himself to smile slightly at how much of a good person Emma still managed to be._

 _"Mr and Mrs Chase are currently in custody and will be going away for a very long time. Victoria and Nathan are being looked after by Mrs Chase's sister and from what I've heard, she would be more than willing to adopt both of them…"_

 _Emma blew out a rather pained breath as she managed to relax slightly. As much pain as she was in, it helped slightly that two more children were not sent into the foster system._

 _"So…when do I have to go to another home?" the blonde asked somewhat timidly._

 _The man smiled at her sadly and reached up to push aside a golden lock of hair that he knew must have been irritating._

 _"Nowhere just yet…I'll start looking for a placement soon, but the doctor said that it would be quite some time before you can be discharged."_

 _Emma frowned again and she actually took a moment to look around her surroundings more critically, "am I…in a private room?"_

 _August nodded slowly, "as I said, you're going to be here for quite some time…what happened was on the news so Social Services wanted to make sure that your recovery was fully funded in the interest of appeasing the media…"_

 _"It was on the news?" the blonde sighed, she was already so sick of being pitied by people when they found out that she was in the foster system, but this would only serve to make it worse._

 _"Sorry, Em," August replied with a sigh, "after that case a few months ago with the baby, the media were more than willing to shed their light on this."_

 _Emma nodded and looked down at her lap. She was somewhat relieved that she would be able to spend the next few months in this room. No new family. No new school. It would be actually refreshing, but she knew eventually that she would have to return to real life and she then people would be able to just Google her to find out more about her._

 _"So what am I supposed to do here?"_

 _August tilted his head and replied, "you need to focus on getting better."_

 _"But…"_

 _The man quickly held up his hand to cut off her worry before he appeased her, "your GPA will be fine, Swan, the school has borrowed you a laptop that you can use to finish this semester's assignments."_

 _With that, he brought the bag off his shoulder and placed it on the bedside table._

 _"You just need to ask one of the nurses for the Wi-Fi password."_

 _Emma nodded in understanding and silence passed between them before August took a deep breath and began, "Emma I'm so…"_

 _Before he could finish, the blonde shook her head and said, "it's okay August, I'm fine."_

 _August thought to argue, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to convince her that she didn't have to pretend to be fine._

 _"I'll visit as often as possible," he assured, "and if you need anything, call me, morning or night, you understand?"_

 _Emma smiled at him and nodded, "thanks August."_

 ** _A/N Reviews are a great motivator ;)_**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Sorry for the long wait and also sorry for this probably being bad and that it's short...I lost inspiration and this is hopefully my way of being able to write more of this in the future. Please feel free to send me scene ideas that you would like to see since that would probably help with a quicker update.**

Chapter five

Regina sighed as she made her way to the lunch table.

Ever since the whole mall fiasco, she hadn't really interacted much with Emma and it was actually beginning to bother her. She was still trying to put aside the thought that it was because she didn't like how much time Henry was spending with their new foster sister. It just wasn't fair that he seemed to so easily build a relationship with the girl just because of comic books.

As she thought this through, she hadn't even noticed her friends were bickering rather loudly at the table. Kathryn was desperately trying to type something into her phone, but Ruby was also trying to grab the device out of her hands.

"Stop it," Ruby growled as she tried to get through the blonde's raised arm.

"This is important!"

Regina raised her eyebrow at them and watched them continue to bicker for a moment, before she cleared her throat to get their attention.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a frown.

Kathryn swallowed hard when she saw the brunette. The rant she had received after the incident at the mall made it clear that she needed to stop being an insensitive bitch and she was sure that what she was trying to do in that moment fell under that category.

"Well…you wouldn't tell me what happened to Emma, so I thought that I would just see what came up on Google, but Ruby won't let me…"

"Because it is a complete invasion of privacy, how would you feel if your worst life experience was online for everyone to read about?" Ruby defended.

"I would know that people are probably going to read it and prepare myself for it."

"No, you would turn into an emotional wreck and ask how you can have something taken off Google!" Ruby retorted.

"I'm not that stupid," Kathryn pouted.

Regina sighed and fell into the seat opposite the pair and resisted the urge to rub her temples. She really wished that Kathryn's obsession with the new girl would fade, but she could see that when something new happened in such a small town, there was no way that anyone would be able to get over it until they knew practically every detail.

"I didn't tell you anything because I don't know anything. I would have told you anything to stop what happened at the mall…"

"You're overreacting, it wasn't that bad," the blonde replied while rolling her eyes.

"You terrified her," Regina said through gritted teeth. She was just so happy that Zelena had decided to not tell anyone about what had happened, but she still had yet to actually try and apologise to Emma and she knew that it was because she was slightly afraid to talk to her for whatever reason.

"Exactly," Ruby inputted, "you've already done enough to her, you could at least have the common decency to not Google her!"

"So you're telling me that you're not even the slightest bit curious about what happened to the girl you are now living with, Regina?"

The brunette bit the inside of her cheek and looked down at her food. She had of course wondered on more than one occasion what happened that had allowed her mother to hear about a foster child from another state. Plus, the broken arm was a constant reminder that it couldn't be anything good. There was a part of her that was actually afraid to hear what could have possibly happened to such a sweet and beautiful girl. Regina's eyes slightly as that thought occurred to her and she quickly looked between the other two to see if either of them noticed the slight hue of blush that was forming across her cheeks.

"I'm sure that it isn't something she wants to talk about," she said after a moment of silence, "and it isn't as if we're close or anything. We've exchanged maybe a few sentences since she's arrived."

Ruby frowned at her. She could never understand how Regina could seem to be considerate in one breath and then inconsiderate in another. There was obviously something holding her back from simply trying to even talk to the new girl and she was sure that it didn't have anything to do with her status in the social pecking order. Even if Emma was a dork, Regina was popular enough that she could basically decree that the new blonde was popular.

"Do you think that's something that should change?" Ruby asked, while she took the opportunity to reach across the table to snatch Kathryn's phone from her clutches.

The blonde opened her mouth to protest, but the brunette next to her held up her hand to tell her that she wouldn't be getting her phone back until she agreed to stop it.

Regina sighed and shrugged, "I suppose that I will have to interact with her when she starts school…"

"And don't you think that she would be more comfortable if you actually made an effort before then?"

Regina just shrugged again and pretended to be suddenly absorbed by her food, "I guess," she mumbled.

Ruby shook her head in exasperation but quickly turned her attention to slapping Kathryn's hand away.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Regina jumped slightly and looked over her shoulder to see her sister staring at her judgementally.

"Nothing," she replied quickly, before she slammed her laptop shut and turned her desk chair fully around so that she could look at the older girl.

Zelena quirked an eyebrow at her and walked further into the room so that she could close the door behind her.

"Really? Because it looked like you typed 'Emma Swan' into Google," the red-head said with narrowed eyes.

"I…" Regina began, but she decided quickly that there was no way that she would be getting out of this, "I didn't press search," she sighed.

The older of the two frowned at the guilty expression on her face and asked, "why not?"

"Well…I really want to know what happened to her…but don't you think that it's kind of an invasion of privacy? And the news isn't going to have the whole story…"

"And what brought this on?" Zelena frowned while she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Kathryn was trying to search for her what happened to her at lunch but Ruby wouldn't let her. She said that it would be an invasion of privacy and that it isn't fair that her worst life experience has to be online for anyone to read about…"

Zelena raised her eyebrows as her sister spoke. The younger Mills was clearly conflicted about the whole ordeal and she couldn't help but feel some pride. The captain of the Stoyrbrooke High Cheerleaders tended to like people to think that she didn't care about anything or anyone, especially if it involved hurting someone's feelings. She was sure that if there was some embarrassing information about another student online, then she wouldn't have even wasted a single second in typing their name into Google.

"So are Kathryn and Ruby your consciences or something?"

Regina frowned but shrugged when she couldn't think of any objection to the comparison.

"Then you know exactly who you should listen to?" Zelena asked.

"I think the answer to the question is to always listen to Ruby…but what if Kathryn is right? Emma might expect people to already know what happened to her which would mean that she would never want to talk about it…and if she doesn't talk about it then she would never deal with it…"

Zelena's eyes widened and she quickly held up her hands to silence the brunette, "wow, okay calm down, Gina," she said quickly. "It isn't your job to be her shrink and if she never wants to utter a word about what happened to her to any of us, then that's up to her. But if she does want to talk about it, or anything else, then it's our job to make sure that she would actually want to go to one of us. Instead of obsessing, don't you think that you should just try and make friends with her?"

Regina flopped back against her chair and let out a deep sigh, "and how am I supposed to do that?"

"Stop treating her like she's an intrusion and maybe actually say more than one sentence to her. And when she gets her cast off and goes to school, don't pretend that you don't know her just because you want to look like you're cool."

"I've said more than one sentence to her," the brunette protested and crossed her arms across her chest petulantly.

"About shopping, but I'm pretty sure that the whole Kathryn bombshell ruined any possible bonding…"

The younger sister nodded and looked down at her lap. Zelena was making complete sense but it was easier said than done. Henry had bonded with their new foster sister almost instantly and she couldn't help but wonder whether she had missed out. She had no idea what their common ground was, so it wasn't particularly easy to start a random conversation that wouldn't be incredibly awkward.

"Why are you in my room anyway?" Regina asked as the thought suddenly occurred to her and she realised exactly where they were talking.

"I need a pen," the red-head shrugged and leaned forward to grab one from the desk.

"And you didn't knock?"

"I couldn't hear any music so I assumed that you were either studying or up to something nefarious…"

The younger sister rolled her eyes. There was no way that she would able to deal with Zelena's unwillingness to knock and she was rather happy that she had just walked in and stopped her from doing something that she would have most certainly regretted. Especially if she and Emma did eventually become friends.

"So what am I supposed to do now?" Regina asked almost pleadingly. She knew that there was nothing that she could do right now since Cora had taken Emma for another meeting with Mr Gold for a progress report on how she had been doing. She was sure that it was just a formality since it was rather strange to allow students to home school themselves for two weeks and her mother had been rather worried about the fact that the blonde teen had very little experience at Storybrooke High. Then again, Cora had been rather worried about almost everything concerning Emma since she had arrived and Regina felt a pang of guilt when she realised that she hadn't been very helpful in her mother's pursuit to make Emma happy.

Honestly, she had no idea why she had been acting like such a bitch; especially after she had met Emma. She was just so sweet and pretty and adorably awkward. As she realised that she had allowed her thoughts to drift again, the teen flushed slightly forced herself to look up at her sister for her reply.

Zelena shrugged, "that's something for you to figure out, I can't just tell you how to make friends with her…"

"Is that because you haven't made friends with her?" Regina asked with a quirked eyebrow.

The red head shrugged again, "I never thought that we would be best friends, we're not exactly in the same age range."

"Henry isn't in her age range either and he's the one who spends the most time with her…"

"But he talks to Emma and they both like comic books…you used to like comic books right? Before you went all air-head cheerleader."

Regina rolled her eyes in exasperation, "I'm not ten anymore, I just grew out of them."

"Keep telling yourself that," Zelena chuckled, "but if you want to find some common ground before you attempt talking to her then you know exactly who you need to talk to…"

"You expect me to go to Henry and ask him to tell me everything that he knows about her?"

"It's that or go for the awkward conversation route," the older of the two chuckled before she began taking steps towards the door. "Just to warn you, you probably won't be getting this pen back."

With that, Zelena disappeared through the door and Regina shook her head to try and get passed the weirdness of her sister. She was sure that she should probably be used to it by now and she felt as though she couldn't really complain.

Turning back to her computer, she took a deep breath and opened the lid so that she could go onto Amazon. Henry would need some incentive for helping her and she was sure that a certain Spiderman would get her exactly the information that she wanted.

 **A/N Reviews would be very much appreciated :) and once again sorry for the quality issues with this fic so far.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Sorry about the length of the chapter but this will be about how long my chapters will be while I have a mountain of uni work to do lol**

Chapter six

-Two days later-

Regina tapped her fingers against the counter-top and checked the time one more time. The package was supposed to have been here the day before, but she had long since lost her faith in One-Day Delivery considering that she basically lived in the middle of nowhere. However, that didn't mean that she hadn't hoped that the Spiderman issue that Henry had been yearning for about six months wouldn't have come the day before. If it had, then she would have already gotten through the awkward conversation of trying to convince her little brother that he should tell her everything he knew about Emma.

Her phone buzzed and she rolled her eyes as she looked down at the device:

Kathryn: _I thought you was going to meet us at the mall :(_

The brunette shook her head and quickly typed out her reply: _I told Ruby that I had to wait at home for a delivery, maybe if you didn't bicker all the time, she would have passed on the message._

Kathryn: _can't someone else wait for it?_

 _My parents are both at work and Zelena and Henry went to the library or something._

Regina placed her phone back down onto the counter and didn't even bother to look at the message when it buzzed. She knew that her friend would be asking what about Emma and the fact was that she didn't want to address the fact that she was in the mayoral mansion with her new foster sister as the only other person there. Strangely, it was the first time that this had happened since Cora had been so reluctant to go to work since Emma arrived but it wasn't as if the mayor could ignore her duties forever without the town going to shit. That meant that she had to force herself to go to work on a Saturday with Regina's assurance that she would stay in all day in the event that Emma needed something. Of course, Regina didn't want to admit that to Kathryn since she would probably want to come over for some inexplicable reason. It was honestly beginning to bug her just how much Kathryn seemed to obsess over Emma but it wasn't something that she wanted to deal with, especially not today.

As she waited for the comic book that would be her gateway to maybe having a conversation with the timid blonde, there was always the chance that she might actually need something, which freaked Regina out slightly. If Emma wanted to ask a question that she would have no problem asking Cora, would she still feel comfortable asking the girl who had done nothing but ignore her? If she actually needed something, then would she just go without it because she didn't want to talk to Regina?

More than once since she had been given this responsibility, she had considered that she should just go upstairs and ask Emma if she was okay, but the mere thought made her throat constrict and she wish that she knew why exactly. She had barely exchanged more than two sentences with Emma since she had arrived in Storybrooke, so there was no logical reason that her hands would get slightly sweaty when she thought about those beautiful emerald eyes underneath those adorably dorky hipster glasses.

Before the brunette could mentally delve further into the many reasons that she thought Emma was beautiful and adorable, she heard hesitant footsteps behind her and blush instantly crept up her face.

After a brief moment to compose herself, she spun the stool around away from her laptop (on which she had been refreshing the order page to see whether the bar had moved slightly towards being delivered).

When she was finally facing towards the doorway her eyes connected with the blonde standing awkwardly like a deer caught in headlights.

The pair of them remained in silence, but the promise that she had made to her mother quickly jumped into Regina's mind and she shifted in her seat as if it would help to shake of the oppressive awkwardness.

"Hey," the brunette said to break the silence.

Emma's eyes widened at the sound of the cheerleader's voice and she swallowed hard to try and wet her suddenly dry throat.

"Hi," she said, just about managing to stop herself from squeaking.

Regina bit the inside of her cheek as the silence stretched on for a few moments before she asked, "did you need something?"

In the brief second before Emma replied, the brunette mentally berated herself at just how rude her choice of words sounded. She had the awkward silence to try and think of a better way to ask what she wanted but she had the distinct feeling that there was nothing that she could have said that would make this interaction any less painfully awkward.

"I just wanted to get a bottle of water…" Emma replied, with uncertainness lacing each of her words.

Regina nodded and jumped from the stool and over to the refrigerator.

Emma's eyebrows shot up as she watched the other girl open the door to pull out a chilled bottle of water before she walked over to the threshold of the kitchen and held out the beverage to her.

The blonde hesitantly reached forward to accept the water with her un-casted arm, "thanks…"

Regina smiled and nodded and then the two of them remained standing uncertainly in silence for about five seconds.

The brunette scanned her mind to think of something that she could possibly say. This was the perfect opportunity to talk to her but the fact that she hadn't talked to Henry yet gave her pause.

Emma brought her bottom lip into her mouth and she shifted from foot-to-foot and prayed that there was some way that she could get away from this…even if Regina did smell good.

The muteness was suddenly cut through by the sounding out of the doorbell and the brunette frowned for a second before it dawned on her what she had been doing before the blonde had come seeking her water.

"I should go get that…" she announced and once Emma nodded she walked quickly (though she was trying not to appear as though she was rushing) and went towards the front door.

"I really need Henry's help," she muttered to herself before she reached forward to open the door in order to accept her ticket to a less awkward interaction.

* * *

"That sounds so awkward!" the brunette on the other end of the call laughed.

Emma sank further into the pillow behind her and thanked anyone who was listening that there was no one around to see how deeply she was blushing.

"Shut up, Lily," she mumbled as she cautiously looked over to the door to make sure that no one was about to walk in. She was pretty sure that it would be hard to explain why she looked embarrassed. There was also the fact that she hadn't told anyone in the Mills household that she was still in contact with her oldest friend. When Emma had met Lily page at the age of thirteen in her tenth foster home, Emma hadn't expected that they would stay in contact after the first time they had been parted.

Surprisingly though, they had met again about a year later and had been afforded the chance to actually bond further as best friends. When Emma had told August about how she had made a friend he had felt terrible about the prospect of them being parted again, but Lily had actually gone to a home with a family who was willing to adopt her. She was two states away, so Emma was sure that she would never get to see her again but then August had brought her a birthday present: a phone programmed with Lily's phone number. She finally had someone her own age who she could talk to on a regular basis and she had to admit that it was nice to talk about the girl she liked rather than pretending that nothing was wrong during her time in her last foster home. There were many times that she had wanted to talk to Lily about what was happening, but she had never quite built up to courage. Plus, there was the fact that she was rather afraid of staying on the phone too long since she didn't want her foster parents to find out that she actually had a phone. Now, however, she has the shiny new iPhone to match her new MacBook, but she was still using the old flip phone that August had brought her.

Lily just laughed on the other end of the line at her friend's obvious embarrassment and said, "why don't you just tell her that you like her?"

Emma rolled her eyes and forced her eyes away from the door. She was relatively certain that Regina had left once Cora had returned home to start dinner but she couldn't help the paranoia at the thought that the brunette would find out about her crush. It was just a crush that would eventually go away, of course, living with your crush didn't exactly help. She had to spend every meal for about a week and a half sat at the same dining table across from the other teen and she had taken to looking at her whenever she thought that she wouldn't get caught. Regina was so unfairly beautiful and Emma had only Lily to rant to about it.

"You know that we could never be together. If anything ever happened then August wouldn't be allowed to let me stay here," Emma sighed, "you know that I can't date my foster sister."

"You would only have to keep the secret for two years and then the world could know about the love between Emma Swan and Regina Mills," Lily laughed and the blonde blushed deeper as she wished that it was possible to burrow further into her pillow. She was slightly worried that one of Lily's adoptive sisters would hear the conversation, she knew that they would probably join in on trying to convince her to admit her crush.

"I've known her for ten days…"

"And she has let you have the room next to hers, taken you shopping, saved you from a nosey cheerleader and stayed in on a Saturday even though she probably wanted to go out with her friends…"

"What does that proved?" Emma frowned while she used her free hand to push her glasses up her nose, "she only did all of those things because Cora told her to."

"If all you wanted to do was to tell me that nothing could ever happen, then why did you call me?"

"Because…I have no more assignments…"

"You have about three days before you start school, don't you think you should be relaxing instead of studying?"

"Studying is how I relax," Emma countered, "and I didn't call you so you could accuse me of being a nerd."

"So I'm not allowed to talk about Regina or school…"

Emma rolled her eyes again, "I called you because I needed to talk to someone about just how awkward it was and my only friend in Storybrooke is a thirteen-year-old boy. I need to have a conversation that isn't about whether the Hulk could defeat Thor."

"Obviously the Hulk would win…"

"Lily," Emma interrupted in exasperation, "can you please just say something that will get my mind off everything?"

Lily was silent on the other end of the device for a few moments as she tried to think of something to say. She knew that it went without saying that everything that had happened to her was off-limits. She had never asked what had happened. Emma knew that she would be there for her if she ever wanted to talk about that but neither of them were exactly willing to talk about the ugliest side of the foster system. That was exactly why Lily was so happy to hear about the Mills household. No one would ever even hope to be placed with a family who lives in a mansion and to top it off, she actually had foster parents who were going out of their way to make her happy. If Emma had any chance of actually getting through her traumatic experiences then she was sure that it would be in an environment whereby all she had to really worry about was a crush on a hot cheerleader.

"Alex and Mal were talking about taking a road trip for the Christmas break…" Lily began as a thought occurred to her.

Emma frowned as she wondered exactly why Lily's adoptive family going on a road trip would be an acceptable change of subject. But she didn't have to wait long for her friend to elaborate:

"I was thinking that maybe I could suggest going to Storybrooke…do you think Cora would be okay with that?"

"Christmas isn't for a couple months, Lily," Emma replied.

"I know," the other teen shot back as she tried to hold back her smile. She knew that it was usually a bad idea to assume that you would be allowed to stay in a foster home for any given amount of time but she just had a feeling that it wouldn't be an issue with this family.

The blonde frowned, "I don't think I have any right to invite guests…"

"We could stay in a hotel, it's not like we would be gate crashing her house, Em," Lily laughed.

"I guess I could ask…if Alex and Mal say yes..."

"Great," the brunette laughed, "because I'm gonna have to meet Regina and give her the big sister speech."

 **A/N Reviews would be much appreciated XD**


	7. Chapter 7

**T/W For homophobia and physical abuse**

 **I'm really sorry for the super long wait but I completely lost inspiration and I had uni to focus on... I've had a spark of inspiration now so hopefully it was worth the wait**

Chapter seven

Regina stood outside the door plastered with Marvel decals and took a deep breath. Judging by the most prominent character proudly splayed across the wood, she had no doubt that she had chosen the best possible comic book to get the information that she wanted, but there was also the possibility that the boy would outright refuse to give her the information that she needed. There was every chance that he would just tell her that she needed to figure it all out for herself and, to be fair, he would be perfectly justified in saying so. She was one of the most charismatic people in the whole of Storybrooke and she couldn't even find a way to talk to a girl who was literally living in her house.

Of course, this little crush that had yet to go away wasn't exactly helpful and she found it so frustrating. There was only one person in town who knew that she wasn't as straight as many would believe her to be and he was currently on vacation with his family. She'd had the urge to call him up many times since Emma had arrived, but she had quickly decided that it would be best to just wait until he got home in a couple of days.

With another deep breath, she steeled her nerves and raised her closed fist, finally bringing it up the door. Stiffly, she knocked slowly for a couple of seconds and then took a step back as she tried to wait patiently.

After a couple of seconds past, she resisted the urge to sigh deeply as she moved forward to knock once more, but her movement was interrupted by the door being yanked forward without move warning.

The boy raised his eyebrow at his shocked sister and tilted his head in confusion, "did you not expect me to open the door?"

Regina stood stunned for a few more moments, before her senses caught up with her and she shook her head, "I needed to ask you something..."

Henry nodded, though the scepticism was evident upon his face. He and Regina used to spend a lot of time together since she used to read comic books to him before she suddenly decided that they didn't interest her anymore and she gave everything she had to him. Recently, however, the only reason that the cheerleader would have to knock on his door would be that Cora or Henry Sr had sent her to go and get him.

He stepped aside and awkwardly gestured for her to enter his room and Regina frowned a moment before she took the invitation and crossed over the threshold. She had expected the room to be a complete and utter mess, but it occurred to her that he must have cleaned it since the last time that she had seen it. This thought made her wonder exactly when the last time she had been in here had been, but that thought was caught short when she realised that her brother was staring at her intently as if she was crazy.

"Are you okay?" He asked, sounding genuinely concerned for her mental wellbeing.

Regina bit the inside of her cheek. She would never normally have this kind of problem talking to her little brother, but she knew exactly why she hadn't come right out and asked him what she wanted to know. The subject of her inquiry was not something that she was able to think about without either closing off herself off and acting indifferent or she would blush deeply (assuming that there were no witnesses, of course).

"I'm fine," she replied far too quickly to be considered normal, which just caused her brother to look even more sceptical than he had a moment before. Regina rolled her eyes at herself and decided that she just wanted to get this over and done with and finally handed over the package that Henry had been eyeing suspiciously since he had opened the door, "this is for you."

The boy frowned. He was fairly sure that Regina had never given him a gift for the sake of it and the fact that she was acting so strange obviously meant that this wasn't just a gift, there was something behind it and he had no doubt that he would be finding out fairly soon.

It was for this reason that he just opened it without much hesitation and his eyes widened as he pulled the book out of its protective bubble-wrap. It was the exact issue of Spider-Man that he was hoping to get for his birthday since there was no way that he would ever be able to save up enough money for it before then. He blinked at it a few times and then looked from it to Regina and then back down to it once again.

Finally, the initial shock of the fact that his sister had given him an unexpected gift and he remembered that she had said she needed something from him.

"So you're bribing me with a comic book because...?" He asked.

"I just wanted to ask you some questions...about..."

"About Emma?" He sighed as he walked over to his bed to place the comic book down as if it was the most precious thing he had ever held. He honestly would have told her anything she wanted to know without the need for bribes but he would certainly not say no to accepting the bribe when it was presented to him. He sat down onto the bed and looked over to her with a quirked eyebrow.

Regina looked as though she was about to deny his words, but it quickly occurred to her that she would never get the information that she wanted to know if she was always on the defensive and so she allowed her shoulders to sag slightly in defeat. A moment later, she came over to sit next to him, with the comic book between them and she nodded.

"It won't be long until she has her cast off and mom will make her go to school...how am I supposed to make her comfortable when I can't even talk to her?"

Henry frowned at her words. He knew that she cared a little about their new 'sibling' but he had no idea that she was freaking out this much about being her guide at school. As-a-matter-of-fact, he had no idea that she was even capable of thinking about the comfort of other people.

"Have you tried to talk to her?" He asked after thinking about it for a moment, "she won't bite, you know?" He chose not to mention the fact that the blonde did seem to act a bit strange sometimes, almost as if she were withdrawn from reality and it only seemed to happen when there was a break in their tutoring sessions. He was aware that there was now way that he would be able to understand what had happened to her, so it was for that reason that he had never once tried to ask her to talk about it. But he also got the sense that there was something else going on in her mind other than reeling from a trauma.

Regina blew out a breath as she thought back to their last few interactions. The only time that they had something resembling a real conversation was the first time that they had met and that didn't last as long as it probably should have considering that she was supposed be making her feel as though she was welcome.

"Whenever I try to talk to her...everything gets really awkward and she looks like she wants to run away..." she sighed and just about stopped herself from placing her head in her hands and giving her brother a pleading look. She didn't want to have to explain to him that her sudden interest was because of a crush that she'd been having on their new foster sister. "Mom will kill me if she thought that I wasn't very helpful on her first day of school...so I just brought you the comic book for advice...and so you wouldn't tell mom that I came to you."

Henry looked at her doubtfully. He had a feeling that she hadn't even thought about how their mother would react and that she was simply just nervous to try and interact with Emma, which he couldn't help but find somewhat funny. He was sure that there wasn't a single other person in town who she would be nervous to talk to.

"Do you have any advice or not?" She groaned, after she decided that he was taking too long to reply.

"She's really easy to talk to...I don't think that there's anything in particular that I could tell you," he frowned, "all I know is that she loves school and that she is a huge Marvel fan...Maybe you could start off with a DC vs Marvel debate?"

Regina rolled her eyes at the thought, though she was sure that she would be more than capable of carrying that debate for longer than all of the conversations they'd had so far combined.

"Is that what the two of you do? Just spend all of your time talking about comic books?" She asked, "you do spend a lot of time in her room..."

Henry bit the inside of his cheek. He knew that he didn't want to tell anyone about what he and Emma spent so many hours doing until he was able to prove that these tutoring sessions were actually working, but he figured that telling Regina would probably only make Regina like Emma more and make it easier for her to start seeing the blonde as a normal person.

"If I tell you, you can't tell mom, dad or Zelena," he said slowly,

The older of the pair's eyebrows shot up as she tried to think of what could they could possibly do, but nothing came to mind and she just nodded to tell him that she wouldn't tell anyone.

Henry took in a deep breath and asked, "did you know that she has an eidetic memory?"

The brunette frowned. She was sure that was something that she should have probably known about the girl living in her house. She was well aware that the girl was smart, but she had no idea that she was actually a genius which somehow made her feel even more nervous to try and talk to her. How was she supposed to make someone so smart feel comfortable at a school that she was probably only going to attend because she was going to be forced to do so? Emma was clearly far happier studying at home than she imagined she would ever be at Storybrooke High School. However, this had nothing to do with what Henry was about to tell her, so she decided that she would dwell on this little fact later.

"Okay…so what?"

"A couple days after she first got here, I asked her if she would tutor me in exchange for comic books…I don't think she's read of them yet though since she spends a lot of time trying to teach me…"

Regina's eyes widened. She didn't think that there was anything that could make the girl anymore amazing, but somehow she had managed it.

"And…why can't I tell anyone?" she frowned.

"Well…for one, it might not work and I don't want to disappoint anyone and make Emma look bad…and I don't want mom and dad to think that I'm using her," he admitted.

"They wouldn't think that, you're already their favourite for being the only one to try and spend time with her," Regina assured.

Henry nodded in agreement, though he didn't look completely convinced. He was still waiting for any grades from all of the work he had been doing and he had been so worried that he would fail and disappoint Emma, it would only make it worse if his parents expected him to have suddenly aced every assignment.

The two of them sat in silence for a few moments longer beforeRegina decided that she wasn't going to get anymore information from him. She now saw that this whole thing had been a stalling tactic. It wasn't the best of ideas to ask a thirteen-year-old how she should act around Emma, they clearly didn't talk about the same things that Emma would talk about with someone of her own age range, which was something that she would have figured out if she hadn't been so desperate to postpone talking to her crush. However, none of this information made the thought of trying to connect with the adorable blonde any less daunting and she knew that there was only one person who would be able to offer her advice and she decided that she would be meeting with him as soon as he returned to town.

* * *

 _Emma blew out a breath and inspected the bruise around her wrist and tried to hold back tears._

 _She couldn't believe that they had cared enough to find out more about her. In the last few foster homes, the parents had just allowed her to get on with her life as long as she didn't cause any problems and then they would decide that they could no longer handle having a foster kid and she would be moved on. She had found that perfectly fine and she never once complained to August about anything during those two years, he even managed to let her stay in the same state so that moving was never much of a problem._

 _Now she was in a home where she had a lot to complain about and August was still on vacation. The social worker covering her case probably didn't even have time to read her file past her name and she had no idea whether 'Alex Thompson' was even a man or a woman, which made her pretty sure that she was on her own._

 _"Are you okay, Emma?" a timid-voice asked from by the door._

 _Emma's eyes shot up and she quickly pulled her sleeve down to cover the offending injury and tried to smile at the six-year-old girl, who looked very confused. There was no way that she would understand what had happened to her, but Emma cringed at the thought that the Chases's could do something similar to their own children. She could report this right now and maybe protect them, but she would be rolling the dice with which social worker they would be assigned to. They could get a lazy piece of shit, like the one she'd had before August, which would mean that their life would be ruined forever and it would be all her fault._

 _As far as she could tell, their parents had never laid a hand on either of them, but they weren't old enough to be 'guilty' of what she had supposedly brought into their home so only time would tell if they would be completely safe in the care of their parents._

 _The blonde sniffed as she tried to force the tears away from her eyes, but she wasn't sure that she had succeeded._

 _"I'm okay, Victoria," she replied with a forced smile, trying to banish the memory of what had happened to her just before Victoria and Nathan had returned home._

 _The girl nodded, though she looked unconvinced, her innocent mind was completely incapable of concocting what could have caused her such upset. Victoria timidly walked over to the bed, ready to assume the position she always did when Emma read her a bed time story, but she stopped at the sound of rushed footsteps in the corridor._

 _"Tori, why don't you go downstairs and help your mom set the table," Mr Chase said softly from the doorway._

 _Emma's throat instantly constricted at the sight of the man and at the thought that he no longer wanted his children to even be near her. She was in one of the rare foster homes where the foster siblings didn't resent the fact that she was there and now she was no longer even allowed near them._

 _This seemed to confuse Victoria more than anything, she had never before been asked to help her mother set the table and she didn't quite understand the anger that played on her father's expression when he looked over at Emma. She couldn't help but wonder what had happened since she and her brother had left for their swimming class. Nonetheless, she still did exactly what her father told her without looking back at Emma._

 _Once the girl was gone, Mr Chase's expression hardened and he looked over to the blonde._

 _"Get off the bed," he said lowly._

 _Emma opened her mouth to protest, but she felt a twinge of pain in her wrist which caused her to jump up from the duvet without even making a sound._

 _"You can't sleep in the same room as Victoria anymore," he announced._

 _The blonde bit the inside of her cheek, once again trying to hold back tears. This was not the time to bring up the fact that they were required by the state to give her somewhere to sleep, but the thought of some sleepless nights made her selfishly wish that Graham hadn't gotten married._

 _"You can sleep on the couch for now," he said as he grabbed her duffel bag and began to throw her stuff inside._

 _Emma clenched her jaw and mumbled, "aren't you afraid the gay will get all over the couch cushions?"_

 _Mr Chase spun around and grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall, "what did you say?" he growled, his eyes filled with rage._

 _The teen's mouth went dry. She wasn't really sure why she had allowed those words to slip out of her mouth, she usually confined those kinds of words to her thoughts, "n-nothing…I didn't say anything."_

 _He tightened her grip and she started desperately trying to take deep breaths, though this only served to make it more difficult._

 _"So you're a dyke and a liar," he sneered._

 _"P-please, I'm sorry," she cried._

 _"Daddy," came from just outside the door and Mr Chase instantly released his grip, giving her a look that said if she said anything matters would become ten times worse. It was for this reason that Emma tried to look like nothing had happened, it was difficult considering the fact she had tears staining her cheeks and she had no doubt that there was a red mark developing around her neck._

 _"Mommy asked me to come and get you for dinner," a four-year-boy hugging a teddy bear with a grin. The little boy was completely oblivious to the fact that anything was going on, though he did frown at the duffel bag on the bed._

 _"Okay, Nathan," Mr Chase smiled, as if he wasn't just choking Emma, "I'll be right down."_

 _Nathan nodded in return and turned on his heels to return to his mother and sister._

 _Mr Chase walked forward to the threshold and looked over his shoulder to see that the blonde made no attempt to follow him and he grinned._

 _"Looks like someone is finally learning," he sneered, "go to my study while we eat."_

* * *

"Have you talked to anyone in the Mills family about what happened?" Archie asked.

Emma looked away from the clock, as though she was surprised to actually hear a sound during her therapy session. In her ten days in Storybrooke, she'd had two sessions, which had been recommended by the hospital as a condition of her discharge. When she had left (since the doctor had said there was nothing physically wrong with her other than her arm) the doctor had been adamant that she would need to continue her therapy, especially since she hand't really made the most of it during her stay in the hospital. She hadn't said a single word to the therapist who came to her room every week and she was pretty sure that the woman would have no idea what her voice actually sounded like.

She had hoped that there was a chance that August wouldn't have told Cora about the condition, but it obviously been in the file sent over to the Mills family and the mayor must have booked all of the appointments at the same time that she had arranged for her to meet Dr Whale.

Archie seemed nice enough, but that didn't change the fact that she had no intention of talking and she had planned to just stay silent until he would eventually tell Cora that it was a waste of time. However, being asked a direct question threw her plan off since she knew that it all become all the more awkward if she pretended that she hadn't heard him as she could back when she was hopped up on a lot of pain medication.

"I...it hasn't come up," she replied, refusing to make eye contact, "they already know anyway."

Archie nodded in understanding, "Cora and Henry are certainly aware...but what makes you so sure that their children know?"

Emma frowned, she wasn't quite sure why this was worth breaking the nice silence for, but she could hardly stop answering his questions now. After a moment of consideration, she just shrugged and said, "it's online, they've probably known since they found out my name."

"Are you sure about that?"

The blonde stopped herself from sighing, she had always been sceptical of therapy, since she had learnt long ago that it was easier just to keep feelings in rather than air them out. Plus, she wasn't really a fan of the constant questioning, especially when it seemed that there was never a correct answer.

"I don't know...I guess I can't be sure..." she shrugged again. Now that she thought about it, she would have thought that there would be some kind of turning point when they had found out. Like when they read the gritty details of what Mr and Mrs Chase had treated her, there would either be an extra layer of sympathy towards her or some contempt depending on whether or not they agreed with the root reason for what had happened.

"Even if they have searched you, do you really think that they truly understand what happened to you? Does the written report really represent what you went through?"

Emma swallowed hard. She could feel tears springing to the corner of her eyes and she found it somehow overwhelming. She had never intended to cry while she was in this town since she had been determined to just repress and get on with her life. What happened had happened and she didn't really think that there was any reason to dwell on the fact. Now she was sitting in this mandatory therapy session feeling as though she was about to start balling her eyes out just because he had forced her to think back to what happened.

"I...it doesn't really matter," she mumbled, bringing her hand over to start playing with her cast, as Archie had noticed she tended to do when she was probably thinking about what happened. He knew that she didn't want to think about her time with the Chase family, but he also knew that whatever plan of repression she had come up with would never work in the long term. In fact, he imagined that she'd had at least one or two flashbacks a day whenever she wasn't busing her mind with something else. As much as an eidetic memory made her a genius, it would also make it impossible to forget what had happened to her. If she could indeed remember everything in detail, as he expected that she could, she was far more in need of help than she would ever admit.

"What makes you think that it doesn't matter?" He shot back, hoping that the sympathy didn't show in his voice. Ordinarily he would try the sympathetic angle since he wanted his patients to know that he genuinely cared about them, but he didn't feel as though it would work in this case. It was rather obvious that the girl was not particularly in touch with her emotions. He was more than aware that people with high IQs tended to have difficulty with emotions, which would only make the feelings that the girl was having an even harder time trying to understand what she was feeling since there was no logical explanations for her emotions.

She shrugged again and Archie resisted the urge to sigh.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Emma just nodded, choosing not to mention that he had been asking her questions for the past ten minutes and he hadn't asked permission.

"Do you know what EQ is?"

The blonde clenched her jaw, of course she knew what it was.

"Emotional quotient," she replied without a moment of hesitation.

"And you know the connection between high IQ and low EQ?" He asked.

Emma nodded again looking down at the the couch. She understood what emotions were, they were biological responses to stimuli, they had some kind of advantage but that was something that she didn't understand. Being scared hadn't exactly helped her when Mr Chase had his hand around her throat, being sad didn't make what happened go away. And it pissed her off so much that she felt this way when she allowed her mind to drift away and she would suddenly feel anxious for no apparent reason. It was for that she had been so eager to help Henry, as long as she was tutoring, she wasn't thinking about anything else.

"Therapists have been trying to fix me for a while, I know," she shot back.

Archie's eyebrows shot up at her reaction, he had never thought that she would so much as talk let alone raise her voice, but he was determined to crank up the intensity of these sessions if he was ever going to get a result.

"Are you angry with me?" He asked calmly.

Emma blew out a breath and closed her eyes, "no," she replied simply.

"Then how do you feel?" He asked. He knew that she wouldn't be able to answer the question and he was being somewhat unfair, but if he was going to help her she needed to start to move forward.

Emma swallowed hard and just looked down at her lap as she shrugged again, she didn't understand how she felt or why she felt that way, which only led to frustration.

"Have you told Cora or Henry that you feel this way?"

"There's nothing to tell them, I'm fine," she mumbled.

Archie opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of a knock at the door cut him short and he looked over to the clock behind his back to see that their time had ended. He knew that this was going to be a long process, especially if the blonde girl refused to admit that there was anything wrong, but at least he has actually got some words out of her during this sessions. However, he couldn't help but wonder how she had hidden this from the family that she had been living with for ten days, he would have thought that they would have noticed if she had trouble with emotions. But he also knew that the whole situation was further complicated by the fact that most people would expect her to act like this following a trauma. It was for this reason that he wrote a note down on his pad to remind himself to call August Booth, he was fairly certain that he would be the only person capable of revealing the true influences of Emma's low EQ.

"Come in," he called and the door instantly opened to reveal the mayor. Obviously the woman had expected that nothing had been said during the meeting, which was why she had knocked to let him know the session had ended. Archie made a mental note to let her know that she shouldn't do that during the next session and he could probably do with the time to come up with some other approach.

"I'll see you in a few days," he smiled.

Emma just nodded and stood from the couch and mumbled, "thanks," as she did at the end of every session.

* * *

"That sounds like a torture session," Lily laughed on the other end of the phone.

Emma rolled her eyes deeply. As her best friend, Lily had long ago gotten used to the way that Emma acted and just how little she understood emotions. The brunette usually just said that it was adorable just how confused a smile could make the genius. She could only imagine that the way Regina acted around her just caused more confusion since the blonde had long ago trying to figure out if people had feelings for her. She had decided that she just didn't understand other people so it was best to just stop trying, which probably part of the reason that she'd only managed to maintain one friend throughout her entire life.

"It wasn't that bad," Emma replied, though her voice told a completely different story, "he just thinks that he can cure low EQ…"

"Cure is the wrong word," Lily shot back instantly, she hated it when Emma spoke about herself as if she were diseased. "He probably just thinks that he can help you better understand your emotions and you know that is possible, just because no therapist has ever tried that hard…"

"Yeah," Emma sighed, "I guess it helps that Cora probably pays him a lot more than what he would get from the state."

"Which is exactly why you should take advantage of this and maybe actually cooperate with him?" Lily shot back. Honestly, she loved talking to her best friend but trying to convince her that emotions were important wasn't exactly an easy task. Plus, the sooner the blonde accepted the fact that she had emotions and learnt how to handle them better, the sooner she would be able to connect with Regina. Even if she had learnt how to act as though there was absolutely nothing wrong with her, because she believed it was illogical to feel anything at all, Lily was painfully aware of the fact that it wasn't particularly good for the girl's mental health. Even if Emma wanted to act as though she didn't have emotions, she wasn't a sociopath.

"I can't use suddenly become emotional, Lily," Emma grumbled as she fell harder against her pillow.

"You do understand that you're not a robot, right Em?" Lily laughed, "a robot wouldn't keep using a flip phone when they have an iPhone 7."

"But that just proves that emotions are pointless, there's no logical reason to carry on using this, it just makes me feel more comfortable," Emma frowned, wishing that she knew how to explain herself better. Of course, she understood that being unable to explain herself was a part of having low EQ, but knowing tat didn't exactly help her in real life, but Lily always seemed to understand.

"You should tell them, you know?"

"Cora and Henry would have read it in my file," Emma replied, knowing full well who she was actually talking about.

"You should tell their kids," Lily sighed, "how are they supposed to get to know you if they don't know something so basic about you?"

"You sound like Archie, Cora should just pay you instead," Emma deadpanned and she could practically feel Lily roll her eyes on the other end of the line. "They already think I'm weird."

"You are weird, Emma," Lily retorted, "but you're also a beautiful genius, you're far more interesting than you are weird. If you don't tell them anything they will never get to know that."

Emma blew out a breath, she knew there was no point in arguing with Lily.

"How do I come out with something like that? All they know is that I have a photographic memory…they don't know that I would qualify for Mensa…"

"And yet you still have to go to High School," Lily sighed, knowing that in another life the blonde would have probably already graduated college, but that would require actually have carers who would be willing (and able) to facilitate that process.

Emma hummed in agreement and she was about to reply, but she was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Dinner's ready, Em," Zelena announced on the other side of the door.

"Okay," the blonde called back and heard the distinct sound of the red head walking towards the stairs.

"Everyone around the dinner table, sounds like the perfect time to make an EQ-related announcement," Lily said thoughtfully.

Emma rolled her eyes, deciding that she didn't have time right now to point out how she would never even consider blurting it out at dinner.

"I'll call you later," she replied before snapping the phone shut.

 **A/N Reviews would be much appreciate XD (Especially since I'm not sure whether people would still be interested in this fic...)**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight

"As good as new," Whale announced as he pulled away the final piece of the cast.

Emma looked down at her bare arm and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. It still felt very much stiff, but she was finally free from the scratch barrier. However, her grin quickly fell away when it occurred to her what would be happening in a couple of days. She had never been so nervous to go to school before.

Usually when she arrived somewhere new, people didn't really have much warning that she was going to show up. But she was pretty sure that the majority of Storybrooke High had been gossiping about for the past two weeks and were anxiously awaiting to find out whether she was as weird as the image of her that they had concocted in their minds.

"You may want to continue taking some pain killers for the next few days and some stiffness is to be expected," Whale explained, which brought Emma out of her mini-panic attack.

Emma finally seemed to notice that Cora was looking at her from across the room with a concerned expression etched across her face.

She had been well aware of Emma's low EQ so it was all the more concerning to see her look afraid.

Whale looked between the two women, slightly uncomfortable himself, before he announced, "I'll just get you a prescription for some moisturiser. You need to put it on your arm every night until it runs out."

Emma nodded her understanding as the doctor left the room. Once the door clicked shut, Cora offered the teen a reassuring smile, or at least she tried.

Emma still looked as tense as ever, even if she was trying to hide it behind a tight smile.

As a politician, she was well aware how it felt to suppress emotions especially in the pursuit of professionalism, but she couldn't imagine how it felt to have an intense emotion and not understand them. Being afraid of something and not understanding it could only lead to more fear, which could only end in a vicious cycle of anxiety. It was part of the reason that she had suggested that Emma study at home for a couple of weeks but the other part of the plan hadn't quite worked out. She had hoped against hope that Regina would have actually built some kind of relationship with the blonde so that she wouldn't feel quite as lonely when she finally arrived at Storybrooke High. Of course, it appeared to her that Regina had made no effort since she would have never imagined that Emma could have made her daughter nervous.

"How does your arm feel, dear?" she asked, deciding that this was not the time to bring up what was going to happen on Monday.

Emma looked down at her arm and bent her elbow as if testing the waters, she frowned at the sensation that ran through her arm, but she quickly decided that it wasn't pain and she shrugged, "it's fine," she replied.

However, Cora could clearly tell that the blonde wished that she could keep the cast on forever if it meant that she didn't have to leave the mayoral mansion. She had the strong urge to press the matter but Archie had warned her about doing so. It was her job to provide a safe place for Emma to live and it was his job to work on her emotional state. Apparently, blurring the boundaries between the two wouldn't be good for the teen.

Just as she was about to open her mouth to say something the door opened to reveal Dr Whale holding a prescription in his hand.

"I would also suggest avoiding gym until your next check-up," he said, clearly not thinking that he had interrupted anything, which he technically hadn't.

Cora nodded and looked over to Emma. She couldn't help the smile that overtook her face at the sight.

Even if it was because she didn't have to do gym for a while, it was still one of the few genuine smiles she had seen her wear.

* * *

"I don't believe that your parents would let you do that," Regina laughed.

"Why not?" Killian frowned as if he were actually surprised by her disbelief.

"Why would your parents let you go off on your own in New York?" Regina said with a raised eyebrow, "and I find it hard to believe that any girl would fall for that."

The young man just chuckled and raised his mug of coffee with a single quirked eyebrow. When he placed the beverage back onto the table, he said, "believe what you want to Mills, even if is rude to call your best friend a liar."

"Who said that I'm your best friend?" the brunette shot back.

"Because Kathryn and Ruby spend too much time bickering, you haven't even thought about telling either of them your little secret."

Regina's eyes widened as she looked around, she quickly realised that the two adjoining booths were vacant and she narrowed her eyes at Killian, who rolled his own eyes.

"Oh relax Gina, I knew there was no one around, plus I still don't think that it needs to be a secret. Your mom took that Emma Swan girl in so she obviously isn't the homophobic tyrant you think she is."

Regina frowned, "what does Emma have to do with that?"

The other teen tilted his head at Regina's expression. He may have only been back in town for a few hours but he still knew quite a lot about the case of Emma Swan. It appeared a lot in the news in New York since what had happened apparently signalled the failings of child protective services and the media had been closely following what was going on in the prosecution of the Chases.

He had been sure that Regina would know all about what had happened to the girl who had been living in her house for the past fortnight.

"Because her foster parents beat the shit out of her when they found out that she's gay," he replied slowly.

Regina sat stunned for a few moments as many flashed through her.

First, she felt a kind of intense relief (which she would later reflect was very much selfish). She would never have believed that her parents would have raised a hand to her when she eventually told them the truth, but she also never imagined that she would get instant acceptance, especially from Cora. However, the fact that she would take in an abused foster child and she knew the reason behind everything that had happened to her, made Regina feel as though she could actually tell her mother without any fear of repercussions.

Next, she felt her stomach drop in sympathy. She had always obviously assumed that Emma's former foster parents had physically harmed her, but her mind had never actually pictured someone actually hurting the blonde. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like to live in a home where was daily beaten for who she was. The blonde must have lived in constant fear and would probably never want anyone to know about her sexual orientation again. There was no way that she would be able to talk about it with her either without giving away the fact that she now knew the very information that's he had warned Emma to trust her enough to talk about with her.

Then, there was the sheer shock at discovering her crush was more viable than any she'd had before. When she'd had crushes in the past, they'd always been on girls who either had a boyfriend or who were undisputedly straight. Somehow, finding out that her crush was also gay, made it all the more intense and real.

Finally, there was an anger at Killian for revealing something that she wished she didn't know.

"What the hell, Killian?!" she whispered rather dramatically, though she had no idea why she was whispering.

Killian blinked a few times before he noticed the distinctive hue of lush playing across her cheeks and he smirked.

"You have a crush on her, don't you?" he laughed.

Regina's eyes widened and she once again checked her surroundings even if she was well aware of the fact that there was no one within ear-shot.

"How…is it really that obvious?" she sighed, deciding that there was no point in denying his words. She had been planning for days to confide in Killian, but she had also been planning to ease into the whole crush thing. Especially since this was the first time that she had actually heard it said aloud.

"I'm the only person in town who knows you're not strictly straight, it's probably not as obvious to other people."

Regina blew out a relieved breath. She wasn't too worried about the prospect of Emma knowing how she felt, since she had hardly spent any time around the blonde to actually give off any hints, but she definitely spent enough time to realise how adorable she was. In that moment, she wished that she had actually fulfilled her mother's wishes and actually tried to build some kind of relationship with the two weeks she had away from the influences of High School.

Killian examined her expression with a frown. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what it meant, "you haven't spoken to her, have you?"

"I have," Regina instantly retorted, before her shoulders sagged quickly, "I gave her a bottle of water…"

The other teen furrowed his brow, "Gina, she has been living with you for two weeks, how have you not had a conversation?"

"She's always either with Henry or mom is asking her if she needs anything…"

"Why is she always with Henry?" Killian asked with a confused expression playing across his face.

"She's tutoring him," Regina sighed, "apparently she's a genius with an eidetic memory…"

"Ask her to tutor you too, then," Killian laughed, "you could have study night and then one of you would suggest a movie and it would turn into a date."

The cheerleader ran a hand across her face in frustration. She had never been a fan of Killian's strategies to get girls and she always found it rather disturbing just how much he always seemed to have thought them through. But, she was glad that they never seemed to work for him.

"I have a perfect GPA and a boyfriend," she deadpanned.

"Daniel is not really your boyfriend. He just doesn't want anyone to know he's really dating Jefferson. Why should he get all of the gay fun out of this little arrangement of yours?"

"Why do I tell you my secrets?" Regina sighed while sinking further into the booth. Her and Daniel has originally been dating for real, but a few months ago, she had caught him with Jefferson. At the time, she had been royally pissed at him, but it didn't take her long to realise that their relationship had never really been real. She was using him just as much as he was using her, even though she had yet to actually tell him why she was so willing to let him use her as a cover. He didn't need to know that he was he was her cover for as long as she stayed in the closet with him.

"Because you know I wouldn't tell anyone. There would be a hashtag by now if you told Kathryn," he laughed, "and I assume you tell me because you want my advice."

Regina sighed again. She didn't know how it happened, but Killian was her oldest friend. Other than her family, there was no one she trusted more in town, which meant that she usually had to suffer some teasing whenever she wanted genuine advice. The brunette nodded and a smug expression overcame Killian's face.

"With what exactly?"

"Emma is starting school on Monday and I'm supposed to be her guide…she seems really nervous about going to school and I don't know how to make her feel comfortable…."

"You could give her a bottle of water," Killian suggested with a smirk. His smirk quickly fell away when a balled up napkin hit him square in the nose.

"You could at least try and be helpful."

Killian rolled his eyes and said, "okay, so you said she's a genius, right?" at Regina's confused nod, he continued, "so she must be pretty logical. Maybe if you go through the school's prospectus and syllabus with her, it will make her feel better and it will give you a reason to actually talk to her."

Regina opened her mouth to protest but she stopped herself short. Henry did seem to think that Emma much preferred facts and logic, which made perfect sense if she truly was the genius he claimed she was.

"I don't think the actual learning part is what she's worried about…" she frowned.

"Of course not, she probably loves that part of school and the social part is not something that you can fix overnight. But you can make her more comfortable by focusing on the part of school that doesn't make her anxious. Plus, it would show her that you actually care about how she feels."

Regina propped her head up on her closed fist and sighed, "but that means I will actually have to read the prospectus."

* * *

"How bad could Storybrooke High be?" Lily asked.

Emma sighed and shrugged even if she knew that her friend couldn't see her, "just because it's a small town, it doesn't mean that the kids are any nicer. They're going to know what happened from the new…"

A silence passed between the friends for a moment at the mention of what happened. Lily had a vague idea of what the Chases did, but she refused to look into the specifics, mostly because she knew she would most likely be sick if read anything specific about what they had done to her best friend. At the same time, she would be willing to put that urge aside if Emma wanted to talk about.

Finally though, the silence passed and Emma added, "they've probably got more information about me than they've ever had on the new girl before…"

"What kind of a dick head would use emotional trauma as ammo?" Lily asked, already planning what she would do to anyone who dared to look at Emma funny (assuming that she could convince Mal to actually take her to Storybrooke eventually).

"It's High School, Lily, there's always at least one…or a group of ones…"

"Em," Lily said, sensing her raising panic, "you've got two days, you have to relax."

Emma blew out a breath and nodded to herself, this was precisely why she had a session with Archie later. Socialising was not exactly her thing, which was only confirmed by the fact that she had only made one friend in her sixteen years of life. Things in Storybrooke had been amazing so far and she didn't want to ruin it by becoming the strange girl at school. The more she thought about it, the more anxious she became, which made her think about it more. At this rate, she was sure that she was going to be the girl who had a panic attack at school.

"Just try and focus on the actual school part of it, I'm sure that if you can't handle it, Cora would let you take more time off…or you could always just graduate early and go to college."

Emma rolled her eyes. Even if she had already completed a lot of twelfth grade work in her own time, she somehow doubted that she Cora would allow her to skip grades. She may have brought her stupidly expensive Apple products but that didn't mean she would be willing to pay for college. Then again, Emma was used to foster parents who couldn't keep a child for more than a few months, let alone someone who would allow her to live with them post-eighteen.

A timid knock at the door interrupted Emma's attempt to reply.

She furrowed her brow at the wooden construct. It wasn't dinner time and Henry was at his friend's house and Cora had tried to stop randomly asking her if she wanted thing after she promised that she would let her know if she did.

"I'll call you back," Emma said and flipped the phone shut as soon as she got an 'okay' from Lily. The blonde placed her phone onto the bed side table before she cautiously walked over to the door.

She had no idea who she was expecting on the other side of the door, but she certainly didn't expect Regina holding a couple of booklets under her arm and a slightly worried expression on her face. Emma looked at her for a second, wondering how she even looked unfairly beautiful even when she looked nervous.

"Regina?" Emma asked in confusion as her eyes fell back down to the papers under her arm. She had no idea what they could possibly be about. Cora or Henry Sr would have been the one knocking at the door.

The brunette shifted uncomfortably. Even if this had seemed like a good idea when Killian had suggested it, actually facing Emma though made her throat constrict and go dry at the same time. Emma raised a questioning eyebrow at the silent teen, who quickly snapped out of it and reminded herself that she had a plan, she had rehearsed this.

"Mom mentioned that you haven't chosen your electives yet…I thought maybe I could help…"

The blonde frowned. It was true that she had yet to choose any electives and she had kind of hoped that she wouldn't need any electives and she had kind of hoped that she wouldn't need to with all of the AP classes she had signed up for. Having free lessons would mean that she could go and hide in the library and possibly be left alone.

However, with Regina stood at her door looking almost hopeful she couldn't help but want to look into more of what Storybrooke High had to offer.

"Okay…thank you," she smiled, pushing the door wider to invite the brunette in so that she could share all of the information that she had clearly spent time researching.

 **A/N I did try and write their whole conservation, but they're literally just going to talk about school so I decided it wouldn't be very interesting so just thought it would be best to end here lol**

 **Reviews would be much appreciated, they're a great motivation XD**


	9. Chapter 9

**T/W For abuse, violence and homophobia**

 **A/N Sorry for the long wait, I have no excuse but hopefully this chapter is worth it :)**

Chapter nine

"What is it exactly that you think you're most concerned about?" Archie asked.

Emma ran her nail across her once casted arm and she frowned for a moment when her fingers didn't come up against any resistance. Even if it had been hours, she still hadn't got used to the idea that her arm was now completely free. It was still stiff but at least she could now touch her own arm without being told to stop by anyone who happened to be in the room (she'd even received a text from Lily to tell her to stop thinking about itching it once). However, if it meant that she could continue working from home, she wouldn't complain if her arm was broken from now until graduation.

The blonde took a deep breath and looked up from her arm so that she could look at her therapist. Obviously Lily had probably been right about how he actually wanted to help her, even if she was convinced that the money Cora was paying him per hour was a great motivator, the fact remained that this man clearly was interested in helping her. She didn't particularly want to discuss school, but she also knew that allowing herself to dwell on the issue would only make her more and more anxious the longer that she attempted to come up with some logical reason behind what she was feeling. The truth was that she knew that there was a logical reason, High School was a horrible place full of people who struck at the first sign of weakness and her weaknesses were online for everyone to see. However, she didn't see why she should be afraid of something when she knew exactly what was going to happen. After what she had been through, a couple of bullies at school should have been nothing, so why was she still afraid?

When she didn't make any attempt to answer his question, Archie tilted his head. It was obvious that she was thinking through the best way to verbalise why it was that she didn't want to go to school, but her mind just wouldn't allow her to do so. It was for this reason that he decided to go a different route, knowing that the blonde would have no problem answering the following question:

"Do you find lessons challenging?" he asked.

Emma brought her eyebrows together and frowned deeply as she shook her head almost instantly, "no…" she said. Lesson content had never been difficult for her, for as long as she could remember (which was much longer than most people) she knew that she was special when it came to academic. Even if she didn't remember much about her parents, she could distinctly recall a conversation between the pair whereby they were discussing just how amazing she was at games that were designed for much older children. Emma often thought about how her parents would have felt if they had ever had the chance to find out the real reason behind her accelerated development. Surely, any parent would be happy that their child was a genius, right? But there was also a part of her that wondered whether she would have been able to connect with her parents on an emotional level. Maybe if she'd grown up with two loving parents, she could have gotten the help she needed much earlier on for her EQ-related issues? She knew for a fact that there were methods to help people like her and she often imagined that her parents would have done everything in their power to make sure that their daughter didn't turn into the emotional train wreck that she knew she currently was.

Archie studied the girl for a moment as he wondered exactly what she could be thinking about. He often noticed that her mind seemed to drift off and he assumed that she was either experiencing some kind of flashback or calculating the cubic space of the clock hung on the opposite wall. Either way, he knew that he would need to bring her mind back to the issue at hand.

"School should be about the lessons, should it not?" he asked.

Emma blinked out of her thoughts and just shrugged, "I guess it should be…"

"But it really isn't?" Archie suppled.

The blonde nodded and blew out a breath of frustration.

"Have you chosen all of your classes?" the red-head asked.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Emma's lips as she nodded and Archie tilted his head at her expression. Of course, he didn't know that the thought of choosing classes reminded the teen of the hour she had spent with Regina going over all of the electives that Storybrooke High had to offer. Even if the whole conversation had only been about school, it had still been a whole conversation with another person her age who was in the same state. Plus, there was also the fact that Regina had suggested that Emma should choose Music so that they would actually have at least one class together. The brunette may have been getting good grades at school, but that didn't mean that she was quite ready to start taking twelfth grade classes like her blonde 'buddy' would be doing. Cora had spoken with Archie extensively about the possibility of Emma just moving up to twelfth grade, but they had ultimately decided against it for the moment. The blonde graduating two years early would just create a whole host of issues when it came to her position in the foster system; plus, there was also the fact that moving up two grades would only cause more problems with their plans to try and help the blonde teen in the EQ department. If she couldn't connect with her peers, then placing her in an environment with people who were older than her certainly wouldn't be helpful. However, Archie was slightly concerned about what would happen if the blonde remained completely unchallenged at school, so he had insisted that she should be allowed to take at least two or three higher grade classes until they ascertained exactly what would actually be best for her. It wasn't as though Storybrooke High was exactly equipped for dealing with a genius.

"Should I take that smile to mean that you have?" the therapist asked with his own smile starting to appear. He made a mental note that he would need to eventually need to ask her what it was that made her suddenly seem so happy since he was relatively certain that it couldn't just be the thought of her classes. However, he decided against asking now since they did have a lot to cover in this session to make sure that she wouldn't be a complete anxious mess on Monday morning.

"I chose music," she replied.

"Music isn't very logical," Archie pointed out.

Emma bit the inside of her cheek when she realised that she hadn't actually considered the fact that she would actually need to do music in a Music lesson. Music had theory that she could study, but there was no logical way to know whether she would be good at it or not since she hadn't gone to many schools that had the funding for a music programme.

Music certainly wasn't logical and she hadn't really gone to many schools that actually had the funding for it, which meant that she had no idea whether she would actually be good at it. Somehow, the thought was actually exciting, she'd never walked into a class before and not known if she would be good at it or not. Now that she thought about it, she didn't even know what instrument she could possibly play.

"I know," she replied simply, but didn't move to offer any other insight into her reasoning for choosing a subject that so clearly went against her personality.

Archie nodded when it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything more on the subject and he asked, "so, if it isn't the content of the classes that is bothering you, then you must know why it is that you would much rather home school yourself?"

The blonde just nodded again and the red-head mentally blew out a breath of frustration. He knew that he had a much higher threshold for patience considering his chosen profession, so he was slightly concerned that the teen wouldn't be able to find someone at school who was quite so patient. He knew that there was almost a 0% chance that she would actually make friends with someone in this town who she would be discussing what happened with, which meant that it would be 100% his job to get her to start working through her issues and even though he hadn't really hoped for quick progress, he had hoped that they would have at least been able to sustain a full conversation before she went to school. Instead, they still had long pauses between each question and Emma had yet to actually say what he would consider to be a full sentence about how she was feeling.

After another moment of silence, Archie said, "you do know what it is that is bothering you the most then?"

The blonde sighed when it occurred to her that this man obviously wanted to her to verbalise her feelings and she replied in a voice close to a whisper, "from my experience…people are so fascinated by the new foster child that they forget that I'm actually a person….and it's going to be worse this time…because…"

When the girl trailed off, Archie just continued to look at her expectantly as she searched for the right words.

When it became apparent that the red-head was not going to ask another question, Emma swallowed hard and looked down at her lap, "everyone is going to know that…I'm gay…"

The therapist smiled sadly at the shame written across her features at the word, even if the blonde didn't want to admit it to herself, the Chases had obviously had a profound effect on her own perception of herself. Then again, he supposed that if someone beat the shit out of him everyday, telling her that she was disgusting, he could see how she could start believing the things he said. He was determined that she wouldn't believe a single thing that those people said to her by the time she left Storybrooke (which would hopefully be far away in the future, if ever).

A silence passed between the pair as Archie tried to think of the right way to word his reply, he didn't want to tell her that person in Storybrooke was forward thinking and would accept her instantly, since he knew that just couldn't be true. Statistically, there was going to be at least a couple of students at the High School who would use it as ammo to torture the new student and there were certainly parents in town who were very traditional and would have passed their values down to their children; however, he truly hoped that there would be people at the school who would prove that the horrible people made up the minority.

"Is that a bad thing?" Archie asked.

Emma swallowed hard and said, "it could be…"

"There are certainly people who are not very progressive," Archie replied, "but is it really logical to believe that you will be treated the same way again in a relatively small high school in a town whereby you have been fostered by the mayor?"

The blonde frowned as she thought this through. There was no doubt that Cora knew about her sexual orientation and she would have never fostered her if she was against it, in fact, the woman seemed to be just as fiercely protective as she would be of any of her real children. A small smile graced at the thought of the mayor tearing someone apart if she ever found out that they had tried to say anything to her foster child and the smile widened slightly more when an image of Regina doing the same passed through her mind.

However, the smile quickly fell away when she realised that she didn't even know if Regina knew about her sexual orientation, for all she knew, the brunette would feel the same way as her former foster parents had.

"Storybrooke is a small town, Emma, and you have a lot of people in your corner. You need to know that you are safe and free to be who you really are," Archie said softly since he was pretty sure that the blonde wasn't going to actually reply to his previous question. He understood that she knew that it was illogical to believe that she would face the same kind of abuse in two foster homes in a row since the statistics wouldn't support that, but he also knew that she still felt a certain fear rise whenever her mind drifted to the every potential possibility. He imagined that genius mind of hers had been working through every possibility since the moment she'd had that cast off and none of her thoughts would actually be supported by any evidence from Storybrooke High School since she had never actually been there during school hours.

The blonde just nodded again and continued to look at her lap. Archie looked over his shoulder and looked at the clock behind him, the session was a few minutes from being over and he could see that the teen had officially closed off for today. He had come to notice that there was point in each session whereby there was no chance that he would be getting anything more than a nod or a shrug from the girl and that meant that it was time to make a note of what he wanted to focus on for next time and let her go out and meet Cora.

This time, it was obvious that they were both aware that she was just anxious about the unknown and that the only way that she would be able to get passed this feeling would be to actually go to the school and see that it wasn't as bad as whatever she was picturing in her head. It was undeniable that she probably wasn't going to have a completely normal first day considering her exceptional circumstances, but Archie just hoped that she would be able to get through at least a few days before the select innate awfulness of teenagers started to rear its ugly head.

Archie hoped against hope that by then she would have met at least a couple people who would be willing to protect her until she was able to protect herself since he somehow doubted that Regina Mills would be the right person to do that. He had agreed that it made sense for the middle Mills child to be Emma's buddy since they would also be living together and it would give Emma a consistent person who she could rely on for at least the first couple weeks, but Archie couldn't help but think that the cheerleader wouldn't be the person who the blonde could rely on forever.

Though he sincerely hoped that the brunette would prove him wrong.

* * *

 _Emma let out a small hiss when she ran her finger across the bruising underneath her eyes. She swallowed hard and forced herself to look into the mirror._

 _"_ _Fuck," she muttered as she inspected the noticeable bend on her nose where Mr Chase's fist had collided with it. The blonde flinched when she instinctively took in a sharp breath through her nose and the memory and she instantly knew that was a mistake as pain began to radiate through her sinuses._

 _It was obviously stupid to think that there was any world where it would be okay to read a story to Victoria, but the girl had pouted profusely and it wasn't her fault that she didn't understand that her foster sister was no longer being treated as part of the family. Though, Emma was sure the the fact that she had to sleep in Mr Chase's study ( . the furthest possible room from Nathan and Victoria's bedrooms) should have tipped her off._

 _Since she had started spending all of her time in there Mr Chase had began to methodically move things out of the room since he seemed to think that she was infectious. Which meant that it was profound bad luck that he happened to walk in at the very moment that Victoria had cuddled closer to her on the couch considering that he had basically pretended that she didn't exist for the last twenty-four hours._

 _Silence had fallen over the room when the door handle began to turn. Emma had known that Victoria would be sent out of the room and that he would attack without hesitation, but she didn't expect him to just launch forward and punch her square in the nose. He then walked out without another word, probably planning what he was going to say to Victoria to explain why she shouldn't spend with Emma._

 _The blonde had remained coiled over in pain for a moment as she clutched her nose and prayed that it wasn't broken. A broken nose would mean no school, she had been allowed to go to school for the past couple of days on the condition that she wore clothes that covered any bruises and that she found some excuse to get out of wasn't sure that she would be able to handle this much longer if she couldn't at least get out of the house for eight hours every week-day._

 _She had finally built up the courage and dragged herself over to the mirror to discover that her suspicions had been correct._

 _An hour later (during which she was sure her foster family had left to have dinner without her) the bleeding seemed to have stopped but the bruising was now undeniable. There was no way that she would be able to leave this house now._

 _The blonde blew out a small breath (which caused her to flinch again) and she went back over to slump down onto the couch that had become her bed._

 _She resolved that she could just try and sleep since she wouldn't be able to feel the constant jolts of pain pulsing through her face if she did; however, any attempt to try and do so were thwarted by the sound of buzzing inside her shirt. She always made sure that the phone was somewhere where it couldn't be found by the Chases since they would only think that she was planning to report them and would take it from her. To be fair, that was kind of exactly what she was planning to do, but she just had to hold onto the device until August was back in town._

 _She bit her lip as she sat up and pulled the flip phone out. For a moment, she imagined what she would do if it was August calling to check up on her. She could tell him everything then and there, but that would mean that the man would have to come home from his honeymoon two weeks early and that just didn't seem fair. Before he had left, she had told him to not worry, the Chases were a nice family (or so she had thought at the time). The one bright side of this was that she was sure that every foster family she had after this would be able to read about her little 'secret' in her file, so she wouldn't have any nasty, homophobic surprises later on. This was of course assuming that she even made it until August got back._

 _The teen shook her head and looked down at the caller-id on the front screen and she blew out a little sigh of relief when she saw 'Lily' written on the screen. Though she had been texting the brunette every chance she got, she wasn't going to tell the girl what was going on yet. That would be just as good as reporting the Chases and she couldn't run the risk of Victoria and Nathan being assigned to the type of social worker who they would only meet once._

 _"_ _Hey," she answered on the last ring and swallowed hard when she heard some anguish in her own voice._

 _There was a silence on the other side of the line, before Lily asked rather seriously, "are you okay?"_

 _Emma closed her eyes in frustration, she had been able to act that everything was okay when she went to school, but there was no one there who she would actually call her friend. Sure, there were a few people who she felt comfortable enough talking to (usually about school-related topics) but there just hadn't been anyone who she was close enough to for them to know that there was something going with her. Lily, on the other hand, had basically known her forever at this point and it apparently only took one word for the other teen to realise that there was something seriously wrong happening to her best friend._

 _"_ _I just have a cold," she lied when she realised that her voice must sound different,._

 _There was another silence as the teen considered whether she believed the girl. She could tell that there was definitely something more than that, but her mind didn't go straight to thinking that she'd had her nose broken because her foster parents had found out that she was gay, because why would it? This was obviously something that she would regret later when she saw a news article about her friend who had stopped answering calls and texts._

 _"_ _You have a cold?" Lily repeated sceptically as her mind began to work through the possibilities of why her friend was lying to her. The hoarseness in Emma's voice sounded like far more than a simple cold._

 _"_ _It might be the flu," the blonde corrected after a moment of thought. She hated lying to one of the only two people who had been there for her during her life, but she knew that Lily would understand when she found out the truth. She just hoped that the other teen wouldn't blame herself for not noticing should anything particularly bad happen. After all, the brunette was states away right now, it would be unfair to expect her to carry that kind of weight for not noticing based on a single phone call._

 _"_ _Emma…" Lily began._

 _In that moment, the blonde almost gave up and told her. Why should she have to live in constant fear just so that she could make sure that some kids didn't end up having the same shitty life that she had? But nothing came out of her mouth when she opened it to let everything spill out. Her mind just wouldn't allow her to do something so selfish, even if she really wanted to._

 _The attempt was cut short anyway when she heard the distinct sound of the front door opening._

 _The blonde took in a sharp breath and muttered, "I should really go to sleep anyway, talk to you later," before she flipped the phone shut and shoved it back inside her shirt before she flopped back against the couch and closed her eyes tight._

 _She tried not to move when she heard the door to the study open. A second passed before she heard the door close again and she opened her eyes just to make sure that she was alone, she had learnt that they wouldn't hurt if she was 'sleeping'._

 _She sighed and turned on her side so that she was facing the back of the couch, right now, sleeping did seem like the be the best option._

 _She just hoped that she hadn't ruined everything by acting so suspiciously to the girl who was currently sat in her bedroom frowning at her phone._

* * *

"Are you still in your room?" Killian asked.

Regina glared down at the phone sat on her dressing table, she knew that she had been the one to call the other teen and then put him on loud speaker as she began her make-up process, but she was beginning to regret that since he had spent the last half-an-hour judging her for not going to ask how she was feeling this morning.

"I'm still getting ready," she replied as she ran a blending brush across her right cheek (as she had been doing for about ten minutes now).

"How is that even possible?" Killian asked, sounding genuinely shocked.

Regina just rolled her eyes again and placed the brush back down to the tabletop.

"We can't all just roll out of bed and throw on whatever clothes are nearest," she replied with exasperation seeping through each word, though she knew that she would be far more nervous right not if she didn't call Killian to ask for help. His irritating nature made for a good distraction from everything that she was worried about.

"I'll have you know that this perfection doesn't happen that fast," Killian replied and Regina imagined that he was currently waving his hand over his body. There was a silence and Killian imagined that Regina was currently going for the world record in eye rolling, so he decided that a swift change of topic was in order, "my point is that you should at least say 'good morning' to her before you leave the house."

"Regina, it's time for breakfast," Henry Senior called after a knock on the door before he walked away. The man had told her almost every morning but she was fairly certain that they no longer expected her to actually join the family at the table. Her parents were just happy when they got her to take some toast to-go under protest.

"You heard your father, Gina, it's time for breakfast," Killian laughed.

Regina sighed and considered this. It was true that she had actually been ready for quite some time since she had woken up a lot earlier than she usually would this morning. She supposed that actually eating 'the most important meal of the day' at the table couldn't hurt.

"Fine," she sighed again and picked up her phone. She swiftly turned off loud speaker ad pulled the device up to her ear, "but how am I supposed to…"

"Be nice to her?" the other teen supplied.

"Make her comfortable at school," Regina shot back and began walking towards her door and then into the hallway.

"I think that keeping her away from Kathryn would be a good first step…maybe get Ruby to run interference for the first few days?"

"That actually wouldn't be a bad idea…" Regina replied as she started walking down the stairs, she certainly didn't want a repeat of what happened at the mall.

"So…did you help her pick out something to wear on her first day?" Killian asked.

Regina cringed as she made it down the final step, "was I supposed to?"

"It would have been nice, you know what that word means, right?" the boy teen teased on the other end of the line.

She was about to make some scathing reply, but she clamped her mouth shut when she realised that she was now close enough to the dining room to be heard by her family. There was no doubt that Emma would currently be sitting at the table since there was no way that Cora would allow the nervous blonde to go without food on her first day of school.

With a deep breath, Regina took a step forward so that she could make her presence known. For a moment, she stood rooted in her place as her eyes fell onto her 'buddy'. She had noticed over the last two weeks that the girl tended to wear loose (and no doubt comfortable) sports-like wear in the house. Regina couldn't really blame her since she couldn't imagine dressing up in her own home, but that meant that she had no idea what to expect the blonde to wear to school, especially since she had no clue what the girl had actually brought from the mall after she had dragged Kathryn away from her.

It was for this reason that she paused for a moment at the insanely tight black skinny jeans with rips at the knees, with purple hi-top Converse that matched the t-shirt she was wearing underneath a black bomber jacket. Somehow, the outfit itself was helping the girl inch away from nerdy adorable to nerdy hot and Regina was sure that if the bespectacled teen wasn't currently frowning down at her plate as she pushed scrambled egg around it, she would just be plain hot. But she knew that the blonde was quite far away from having that kind of confidence, though she found herself wishing that she wasn't top far away.

Regina swallowed hard when she realised that she was a second away from looking weird and she prayed that she wasn't blushing as hard as she felt she was in that moment.

"Regina?" Killian asked and the girl wondered whether she had missed something that he had said. It may have felt like minutes had passed when she had looked at Emma, but she sincerely hoped that it was only a second or two at the most.

"Regina?" Cora seemed to repeat and the other four sat at the table looked up at her with curious expressions.

"I'll talk to you at school," she muttered into the phone and hung up before Killian could protest.

Once she locked her phone, she smiled at her confused parents and took the only vacant seat at the table (which just so happened to be next to Emma).

"Good morning," Regina smiled, before she asked, "could you pass the toast please?"

Emma's eyes widened as she considered whether she had ever been this close to Regina Mills. The brunette had sat at her desk while she was on the bed when they had gone through the electives and even that had almost too much for her to handle.

After a very noticeable pause, the blonde reached forward and grabbed the toast rack before she placed it next to the cheerleader.

"Morning," the blonde replied in a barely audible voice.

"Thank you," Regina said with a genuine smile as she plucked a piece of toast from the rack and placed it on her plate.

Emma returned the smile as she picked up her fork again and slowly began to place the pieces of egg into her mouth.

Cora exchanged a frown with her husband. Maybe Regina wouldn't make as terrible a buddy as everyone seemed to think she would?

 **A/N Please let me know what you thought, reviews really help with motivation and inspiration :D**


	10. Chapter 10

**So sorry for the long wait, usual combination of uni work and writer's block :/ I honestly can't say when I will be able to update again since I'm in my third year now but if the wait gets too long feel free to send me a message/review since there is a good chance that I might have forgotten lol**

 **Major T/W for panic attack!**

Chapter ten

Emma twirled her pen in her fingers as she paid attention to the teacher intently while she droned on about _Jane Eyre._ Every other person in the AP English class were furiously writing notes about every single word she said about the bildungsroman. Emma learnt early on that she never needed to make notes, even if she had gotten into trouble on more than one occasion for this, based on her first class at Storybrooke High, she could only assume that the teacher's were aware of her special circumstances.

There was also the fact that she had already studied _Jane Eyre_ at one of her previous schools, though it hadn't been in an AP class she had done a lot of research in her own time so that she could satisfy her own need to be studying at all time.

Homeroom with Regina has been painfully awkward even though no one had actually said anything to her yet. She had simply been introduced by Mr Greene (a.k.a. her homeroom teacher) and then had been sent to sit next to Regina. She had certainly received some looks and she could have sworn that she had heard a few people whispering about her but she had yet to actually have someone approach her to say anything, but the day was certainly young.

Regina walked her to her first class, which was unfortunately now of her twelfth grade AP classes, which meant that the cheerleader wouldn't be able to be in the same class as her. There was no one in this room who she knew, but she was so relieved at the same time. Twelfth grade AP class meant that she was surrounded by students who were working their asses off to get into Ivy League colleges, so none of them actually gave a shit about who the new girl was. She was pretty sure that the same wouldn't be true when she finally went to a tenth grade class, especially study hall. She just couldn't decide whether it would be a good thing or not it was a good thing that she would have Regina with her during those classes.

"Now each of you please find a partner to discuss the task I have placed on your desks," the teacher announced, which brought Emma out of her small reminiscence of earlier that day, "and do please try to work with someone new," the woman added, hoping that the new addition to the class wouldn't know that it was for her benefit.

The blonde blinked a couple of times as people began dutifully milling around the room, with a few mutterings about how they hated having to work with new people. She resisted the strong urge to sigh at the fact that this lesson wouldn't simply be a lecture as she had hoped and she pulled the work sheet towards herself so that she could prepare herself to work alone. However, she was quickly brought away from looking at the words when she felt the force of someone slipping into the seat next to her.

Emma frowned and looked over to the blonde newcomer, she opened her mouth to say something but she was cut off by the welcoming smile.

"Hey," the older blonde said as she began to rifle through her notebook to find the right page.

Emma instantly felt a blush form across her cheeks at the distinct sound of a British accent and she looked intently back down to the page with a small, "hey," in reply.

A moment later, it appeared as though everyone had finally found their own pairs and the room was beginning to fill with a small hum of sound which was slowly getting louder the more that people actually started the task.

"It's Emma Swan, right?" The girl finally said as she looked away from her own notebook that she had been writing in for a few moments and she smiled at the younger girl who she had heard as much about as anyone else. Basically everyone knew the story of what had happened to Emma Swan and that she had been fostered by the richest family in town but there was something that she was far more interested in when she had read a couple of the news articles. One of the more obscure ones mentioned the girl's IQ and the fact that the sixteen-year-old was sat in a twelfth grade AP class only confirmed it. She found that to be far more interesting than desperately clamouring for any of the ugly details as some of her more morbid peers did.

"Yeah I am," Emma replied as her eyes cautiously flicked up to the stranger.

"Alice Kingsley," the older girl said in reply to the unasked question, "it's nice to meet you."

The younger of the pair actually felt a small smile tug at the corner of her lips as she allowed her eyes to quickly move over Alice. She was wearing a hoodie bearing an image of the Triforce which was coupled with tight black jeans and hi-top black Vans.

Alice seemed to notice Emma's eyes looking down at her chest and she smirked for a moment, before she asked as she pointed at the image, "you know what this is, right?"

Emma blushed slightly, obviously having had realised that the woman must have noticed her wondering eyes. However, she seemed to finally pick up on the fact that she had been asked a question and she replied, "yeah, it's the Triforce."

"Finally," Alice laughed, "everyone else in this town thinks that Link's name is Zelda."

The younger blonde allowed herself to let out a small laugh as she felt her shoulders relax slightly, she was sure that the last time that she had felt so comfortable around someone was when she had met Lily all those years ago. However, she'd never been attracted to Lily, which could only be a complication.

"I only played the first game…" Emma admitted.

"So you've never played Ocarina of Time?" Alice asked with her eyebrows raised as if she were genuinely hurt by that fact.

"I've never lived in a house with an N64," she replied, looking back down at her desk when she realised that she had basically just brought up being a foster child, which was not something that she tended to do, ever.

"That's just tragic," Alice sighed.

Emma smiled and was about to make a reply; however, she was interrupted by the sound of the teacher clearing her throat to get the classes attention.

"Your homework for Thursday is to complete the task with your partners and then please prepare a presentation based upon your findings," she called out just as the bell rang out.

Alice smirked when she saw the shocked expression on Emma's face as people began gathering their things so that they could shuffle towards the exit. The older girl nudged her as if to tell her that she should start moving as well.

Emma blew out a breath and picked up the notebook that she had brought in the event that the teacher decided that she wasn't allowed to simply listen. Alice seemed to finally notice the blank page and she smiled as she considered that could only support her actually being a genius since she didn't seem like the type to not try in class.

"I guess we need to actually start the task," Alice laughed as the pair began to walk towards the door (and she was sure that they were well out of ear-shot of the teacher).

"I guess so," Emma replied with a smile.

Alice was about to suggest a time when they could meet, but she was interrupted by the infamous captain of the cheerleading squad walking towards them and she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the girl. She had heard a few people talk about how Regina Mills was the new girl's buddy, but she had never found it within herself to actually care about something that could never possibly effect her life. However, the girl was certainly effecting her life right now.

Regina frowned at the blonde who Emma appeared to be talking to and she couldn't help but narrow her eyes at her on instinct.

Alice quirked an eyebrow the the expression, though another bell rang out to remind her that she hardly had the time to pry into what it meant.

"Hey," Regina said awkwardly, "are you ready to go?"

Emma nodded and she was about to turn to Alice to say something, but she was cut short when the older girl grabbed her hand and used the pen in her spare hand to scribble something upon her palm.

"Just text me and we can set up a time to meet," Alice said and when Emma nodded, she released her hand and began walking away.

Regina scowled over her shoulder until she was sure that the older blonde was gone and she turned back to Emma with a questioning frown.

Emma furrowed her brow at the expression on Regina's face. She was pretty sure that the expression meant jealousy, but facial expressions were not her strong suit so she decided that it was just wistful thinking.

"We're doing the paired homework task together," she explained, though she wasn't too sure why she had to explain that to her buddy.

Regina bit the inside of her cheek by way of stopping her internal screaming from becoming external.

"Oh, that's…good," she said, hoping that her words didn't sound too strained.

"You better get going to class, ladies," a random teacher called and Regina blew out a little breath of relief as she was reminded that there was a way out of this awkward situation.

* * *

The rest of the day went rather quickly for Emma. None of her classes were especially challenging, but they weren't mind-numbing so she was actually able to listen to the teacher between worrying about the next time that she would see Regina.

After Alegbra (a class which unfortunately did not have Alice in it) she was set to meet the girl at her locker so that they could have lunch together and something about the thought of that had Emma's stomach in knots. Somehow, having lunch with the brunette felt a lot more pressured than sitting together in her room for a couple hours talking about school.

The bell rang and brought the blonde out of the thoughts that had been consuming her since the beginning of this class and she quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed that she hadn't been listening. If the reassuring smile that the teacher shot her was any indication, he had either not noticed or he was putting on the same 'supportive' face that she was fairly certain that the entire faculty had been instructed to adopt when they were in her presence.

Emma swallowed hard and made quick work of gather all of her things and throwing them into her bag so that she could join the rest of the class shuffling their way out into the hallway.

The moment that she crossed over the threshold, she froze as ten people rushed past her in about ten seconds, obviously all very eager to get to the cafeteria. The blonde stood frozen in place for a few more seconds before she felt someone push past behind her and she realised that she hadn't been the last person trying to leave the classroom. She looked down to the ground just in time to miss the dirty look that she was sure the people trying to pass her were shooting her way and she began to shuffle towards her destination.

She imagined for a moment that she could just go to the library and avoid the whole ordeal of the cafeteria (like she would have done in almost every other school that she had attended) but she quickly decided against it when it occurred to her that Regina would probably get in to trouble if she didn't perform her buddy duties perfectly. There was also the fact that Emma wasn't exactly in any position to pass up an opportunity to spend time with the girl who she was so infatuated with that made her continue her slow walk along the path that she had spent time memorising in the days before she started at Storybrooke High.

As she walked, the thought of just how much she wanted to spend time with Regina caused a blush to begin to creep up her neck and she instinctively pulled the straps of her backpack closer to her body as if it would protect her from the stares of the people who were currently staring at her from their lockers. Even if she logically knew that there was no way that any of them could know what she was thinking, this did nothing to subside the tightening knot in her stomach and she desperately tried to focus on the end of the hallway. All she had to do was make it to the end and turn the corner and she should find Regina waiting for her, but it seemed as though her destination was getting further and further away the more she took steps forward.

The sound in the hallway seemed to amplify and Emma's eyes quickly looked from side to side. They were all looking at her and whispering about her, she was sure about it. Many of them were clutching their phones as if they were waiting for her to do something weird that they could post online. All they had to do was bring up the name of 'Emma Swan' again and the media would jump right back onto the story. She would be the number one trending topic in no time: 'Social Services continues to fail Emma Swan: abuse victim has panic attack at school'.

She tried to push this thought aside and focus on her breathing (as she had been told to do by Archie many times), but someone pushed past her again and she realise that she must have been standing stock still and she had no idea when her feet had stopped working. The fact that she was standing blankly in the hallway probably didn't help with looking normal and she was definitely receiving curious glances from a few people, along with some smirks and increased whispering (though she would later realise that it was unlikely that every single person in the hallway was talking about her).

The blonde caught the eye of a couple of people who were definitely staring at her and her breaths now began to come out short and strained as her throat began to constrict.

Racing heart. Feeling dizzy and faint. Sense of terror. Loss of control. Breathing difficulties. Emma listed in her mind, she knew instantly that she was in the midst of a panic attack. But for some reason she found that her eidetic memory was complete blank of all of the techniques that she had purposefully memorised after the last time this had happened.

With what was left of her logical mind, she attempted to move forward and she quickly felt herself stumble into the locker next to her with a little thud.

If people hadn't been looking at her before, then they certainly were now and a girl who she had never seen before came over to her with a familiar look in her eyes. Behind her, stood a very familiar blonde with wide eyes as she looked on at the scene. Seeing Kathryn only reminded Emma of the mall and all of the questions that the entire student body probably wanted answers to.

"Hey, are you okay?" the lanky brunette asked, placing her hand onto Emma's arm and bringing her attention away from Kathryn.

At the sudden contact a male voice boomed in Emma's mind: 'so you're a liar and a dyke.'

Emma's eyes widened as Ruby's grip on her arm brought back memories of the last person who had physically touched her and she recoiled around from the blonde and brunette who were obviously trying to shield her from the other people in the hallway but were only succeeding in making her feel penned in.

She tried to open her mouth to say something in reply but she closed it when it occurred to her that there were tears falling down her face without permission. The completely silent hallway told her that people were now definitely staring at her with all of their attention. The thought that she was supposed to be meeting Regina at her locker offered the perfect means of escape, all she had to do was turn the corner and she would escape the stares of sympathy and intrigue.

It was for this reason that she dashed away from Ruby and Kathryn as quickly as she possibly could and practically stumbled around the corner.

She was vaguely aware that Ruby was following behind her (probably to make sure that she was okay) but she couldn't find it within herself to focus on anything else in that moment other than getting away.

She swallowed hard against her heavy breaths as she turned the corner and but she stumbled when a new sight came into her slightly blurred vision.

This hallway was just as packed as the other one and people here was slowly beginning to look at her as well. Emma breathed deeply as she looked around to see the exact locker that she was supposed to be looking for, but her heart dropped when she did not see the brunette she had been hoping for.

The teenage boy leant against his best friend's locker quickly unhitched himself and his expression changed from one of exasperation to one of concern when he noticed the blonde he had been asked to meet.

Killian crossed he hallway in as few steps as possible until he was standing in front of Emma, though not quite as close as Kathryn and Ruby had been just moments ago.

The blonde looked to be in complete panic mode and he looked over her shoulder to see Ruby and Kathryn. He instantly knew that the presence of the blonde couldn't possibly be helpful after the stunt that she had pulled at the mall and she shook his head to tell them to leave this to him.

When he was sure that they were retreating, he looked around the hallway for the options at his disposal. He noticed that the blonde's breathing was only getting heavier the more that she looked at all of the people who were staring right back at her and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

He grabbed her arm as gently as possible and led her towards the nearest vacant classroom.

Once he had led her over to a seat, he rushed back over to close the door and pull the shade down over the little window.

When Killian was satisfied that no one would be looking in to see what was going on, he went back over to Emma, once again ensuring that he didn't get too close to her.

"Breathe, Swan," he whispered softly and smiled when he noticed that she was already beginning to calm down.

 **Reviews would be much appreciated :)**


	11. Chapter 11

**T/W for description of panic attack**

 **Apologises for the wait, I do hope you enjoy it anyway :)**

Chapter eleven

Regina knew that she was in trouble.

It was surprisingly infrequent when her mother was truly angry considering that most younger people in town seemed to believe that Cora Mills was some kind of dragon lady. In most situations, however, Regina had found that her mother was oddly supportive, except when she or her siblings had truly fucked up.

The vein had popped out of her forehead when Zelena had lost Henry in the mall, when Regina had been three hours late for curfew and now it was popping after getting a call from the principal of Storybrooke High.

"Where were you Regina?" Cora asked through gritted teeth, clearly trying not to allow real rage to escape in Mr. Gold's office.

Regina swallowed thickly from her seat in front of her desk and her eyes quickly flicked over to the door to the office. Somehow, the thought that Emma was sat outside with Killian made her feel better.

"I was…talking to Daniel…" she replied, deciding that now would not be a good time to tell her mother that Daniel had grabbed her into a kiss because someone on the football team had suggested that he did something 'really gay' or something like that. Regina wasn't really listening to his explanation after Killian had sent her a text to let her know that he was with Emma.

Cora opened her mouth, with a frustrated sound of disbelief escaping, but the principal cut her off with a raised hand.

"Miss Mills," he began calmly, giving Cora a warning look that said he didn't want a shouting match in his office, "you do understand that as Emma's buddy, you should have been the person who was there for her when she had…"

"Had a panic attack," Cora supplied, trying to emphasise the gravity of what happened.

The younger brunette just nodded and looked intently down to her hands. Everything within her was saying that she should be fighting back and making the point that she never wanted to be Emma's buddy, but she couldn't really find it within herself. The fact was that she felt indescribably guilty for what happened, even if she didn't know if her being there would have made any difference, she still felt like a complete bitch for not being there for the vulnerable blonde.

"I'm sorry," Regina mumbled and her mother just rolled her eyes.

Cora pinched the bridge of her nose and Gold shifted uncomfortably in his seat, this was not something that he was expecting to do today.

"Well," he said, gaining both of their attention after a couple beats of painful silence, "I think that is clear that Miss Swan will need to be re-assigned a new buddy."

"No," Regina shot back, "that isn't fair."

"Regina," Cora said lowly and the warning was obviously registered as the younger brunette shrank back in her seat.

"Shouldn't it be Emma's choice?" Regina asked, managing to keep her tone more respectful this time.

The mayor frowned and tilted her head at the younger woman. She had been sure that she was only complaining because she didn't want to get in trouble with her, but it appeared as if she actually cared about Emma.

Gold looks over to Cora questioningly, clearly not wanting to overrule her decision in front of her daughter.

The mayor simply shrugged and replied, "that is a matter that we can address later, right now, I need to take Emma back to the mansion."

Regina sunk further into the chair and looked adamantly at her lap. She was desperate to talk to Emma herself and apologise for not being where she had promised to be, but it wasn't as if she could ditch the rest of her classes just to talk to the girl who lived in her house.

"We will be talking about this more at home, Regina," Cora said sternly, though she wavered slightly. It was occurring to her that she wasn't sure if she should punish Regina for this or not, its not like grounding the cheerleader would help her build up a true friendship with Emma and she did look awfully guilty in that moment, even if the mayor was mostly sure that it was an act to get out of being trouble.

The older brunette tore her eyes away from the cheerleader and looked over to the principal, "I assume that it would be okay for Emma to have some more time off?"

Gold nodded instantly, "she can take as much time as she needs."

"Thank you," Cora sighed, "I will speak to Archie about the manager and let you know what he recommends."

The principal just nodded again and Cora made her way to the door with no further ceremony, all she could think of was that she had no idea what could possibly say to Emma.

* * *

Emma's head leaned on her hand and she stared blankly at the door in front of her.

The blonde felt oddly numb after the events of earlier that day, if anything, she felt like a complete moron. There was no reason that she needed to get herself so worked up over there being so many people around her, even if it had been the most people she had seen so tightly packed in one place since she had last attended school over seven months ago.

There was absolutely no reason why her body should allow one single moment of panic to turn into heart palpitations, blurred vision and sweating, but it did it anyway and that was absolutely frustrating.

Now she would no longer just be the news case that everyone was interested in, she would be the weird foster kid who had a panic attack in the middle of the the hallway and there was nothing that she could to dispel that image now.

She sighed and pushed her head of her hand and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Even if it wasn't the flip phone that brought her so much comfort, it was still a way that she would be able to message Lily.

Lily Page would know exactly what to say to make her feel better, which would be something along the lines of 'why would a robot like you care about what everyone thinks?'. Emma smiled as her fingers hovered over the screen of a blank message, but she faltered when she realised that she didn't know what she should say. She typed out 'I need to talk to you' but quickly deleted it deciding that would only give Lily anxiety of her own and then tried: 'so…I had a panic attack on my first day of school' but she deleted that well.

The blonde blew out a breath and leaned against the back of the chair. This was not something that she could text about, she decided, and she didn't exactly have time to call the other girl whilst she waited for Cora to come out from talking to Archie.

It was for this reason that she instead shot off a text to one of the newer numbers in her contact list: 'Hey, thanks for today'.

After a solid thirty seconds of hesitation, she finally pressed send when it occurred to her that she desperately wanted to talk to someone who was not an adult.

About then seconds passed and she began to wonder if the number had been given to her out of pity rather than genuine concern, but that worry fell away when her phone dinged and she got a reply from Killian.

'No problem, Swan :), I would say anytime but we don't want that happening again lol'.

Emma smiled at her phone and she was about to type out a reply but the door opened in front of her to reveal the mayor of Storybrooke.

Cora smiled at her reassuringly, but the blonde couldn't help but feel a certain amount of guilt for dragging her out of work just because she couldn't walk down a hallway without melting down.

"Archie wants to talk to you and then I'll take you home, okay?"

Emma nodded and dutifully stood to walk into the therapist's office. The door shut behind her after Cora gave her another comforting smile before she sat on the couch she had been on many times now she could swear it got less comfortable each time.

Archie watched the blonde walk in and tilted his head at her with the same kind of smile she had gotten from many adults today. They sat in silence for a few moments before he asked. "do you want to talk about what happened or wait until our session?"

"Wait," Emma replied instantly.

Archie nodded, of course she wanted to put of talking about feelings normally he would insist, but she needed some time to process.

"Okay," he replied, "Cora wanted me to ask if you would like a new buddy at school."

The blonde frowned, "it wasn't Regina's fault," she replied.

"Regina was supposed to meet you and she wasn't there," Archie said, "you are within your right to ask for a more…attentive buddy."

"No, I would prefer to stay with Regina," Emma said, hoping that she wasn't blushing. Honestly, why would she want to give up the chance to spend time with her? "Unless she doesn't want to be anymore?"

Archie furrowed his brow, she was indeed blushing. He supposed that it made sense that she would fall for Regina, but he decided that it was nothing to worry about for now, if it became an issue he could just mention it to Cora and she could decide what she wanted to do .

"I'll let Cora know that you want to stay with Regina for now, would you like anymore time off school?"

Emma opened her mouth to say 'yes' but the word didn't come out. It occurred to her that if she took more time of school now she would just go back to being the girl that everyone talked about, they would think that she couldn't handle herself. Plus she still needed to do that paired project with Alice.

"No I'll be fine," she replied.

Archie inspected her for a moment, trying to figure out whether he should just say that she could come back to school next week, but everything that he knew about her told him that she would have taken the offer, so maybe her first day wasn't all bad?

"Okay…there is one more thing before you go home," the therapist said and reached over to grab a small leather bound book before he handed it to the blonde, "I want you to start journalling your feelings."

"I don't have feelings," she deadpanned.

"You know that isn't true, Emma," Archie replied just about resisting the urge to sigh, "there is a difference between having feelings and not understanding them. I thought that if you wrote them down then we could study them together."

Emma stared at the book, she wanted to argue that she couldn't understand her emotions so there was no way that she would describe them in writing. But all she wanted to do was go home and talk to Lily and she knew that Archie would just tell her that she needed to do it anyway, so she could just prove how pointless the exercise was by doing it for a while.

"Okay," she shrugged. "can I go home now?"

Archie just sighed and nodded.

* * *

 _Today I felt…_

Emma frowned and put a cross through the writing, she knew this was pointless.

 _At school today I had a panic attack…_

The blonde sighed and crossed that out as well, honestly why was this so difficult?

She stared at the blank page for a moment, before an idea sparked and she began writing furiously:

 _Whilst walking down the hallway at school today, I suffered from the Spotlight Effect as I overestimated how many people were looking at me. This caused my heart rate to increase as a result of the fight or flight response, my breathing quickened to accommodate the increased need for oxygen. These physiological responses to the psychological stimulus caused further panic, resulting in hyperventilation which was only worsened as people were now actually looking at me while I was visibly having a panic attack._

She finished writing and re-read it to check for mistakes. She knew that this was not what Archie wanted from her journal, but if he really wanted to know how she experienced emotion then he would get it. Maybe then he would stop trying to ask her to express her feelings?

A light knock on her door caused her to tear her attention away from the book and she frowned when it occurred to her that there was a tear on her cheek from when she was writing.

She shook her head and quickly wiped it away before she snapped the book shut and call "come in."

The door opened and Emma tensed when she saw it was the youngest Mills woman rather than the oldest.

"Hey Regina," she said, hoping that she didn't look too flustered.

Regina smiled at the blonde who she had been thinking about all day. Somehow she felt better seeing that she was in one piece, at least physically. She closed the door behind her and walked further into the room.

"I just wanted to apologise…" she said, standing in the middle of the room while trying to resist the urge to ring her hands together out of anxiety.

Emma frowned at the usually confident teen and she shifted so that she was looking at her more fully, "for what?" she asked.

"For…for not being there…" the brunette replied, looking firmly down at the ground as she spoke.

"I'm fine…" Emma said quickly, though she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to respond to this. She couldn't say that she probably would have felt better if she was walking down the hallway with Regina because that would probably freak the girl out and she was probably only apologising because her mother told her to. "It wasn't your fault…"

"I wanted to ask you if you thought…maybe if you think it would be better if someone like Alice was your buddy?" Regina replied, still refusing to look up.

Emma furrowed her brow, did Regina look upset and jealous? She hadn't even thought about Alice since she had written on her hand but the episode appeared to be a massive issue to Regina.

"I would prefer you to be my buddy," Emma said simply and looked down at her lap as she felt blush burn across her cheeks. Honestly, why did she have to be so awkward?

Regina finally looked up at the blonde and frowned, before she replied, "if you're sure…I promise I'll be where I say I'll be tomorrow."

Emma just nodded, she couldn't look up encase the cheerleader saw her blushing. She wasn't entirely sure if Regina knew why she had ended up in her position, but she knew that she didn't want her to think that she liked her and freak out. She particularly didn't want Cora to know that she had a crush on her daughter. She might have taken her in, but she couldn't easily throw her out if she found out that she wanted Regina.

The blonde nodded again and Regina was about to turn to leave. Emma's eyes fell onto the journal and she remembered what Archie said to her a while ago. She could tell that Regina was frustrated and she figured that it made sense for her to understand what she was supposed to be helping with.

She swallowed hard and called, "Regina?"

The brunette instantly turned around, looking almost relieved, and looked at the other teen expectantly.

Emma took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably, she hadn't told anyone this since Lily.

"Do you know what Emotional Quotient is?" she asked, only just loud enough to be heard.

The cheerleader just shook her head.

"It's like…emotional intelligence, like understanding feelings and stuff like that…" Emma said, not looking up, she was increasingly sure that this was a bad idea, "there is a link between high IQ and low EQ…I don't really understand emotions the way that I'm supposed to…"

"Oh," Regina replied simply, she wasn't too surprised to learn that the blonde had high IQ, but she had never really considered before that emotional intelligence was a thing, like didn't people just know what feelings were naturally?

"Dr. Hopper has been trying to help me with it but…" Emma trailed off and just shrugged, now certain that there was absolutely no reason for telling the brunette this other than apparently making her uncomfortable. "I just thought that if you're going to be my buddy then you should know…"

For a few moments, Regina did nothing. Her brain was running a mile a minute as it took in all of the implications. She knew that some people were more closed off than others, but she always assumed that they still understood how they were feeling and just didn't want to talk about it.

She couldn't imagine what it must have been liked to go through the trauma that the blonde had been through and not be able to understand how she felt about it.

"Thank you for telling me," Regina said, and almost cursed herself for being so awkward.

Emma just nodded and she was about to move back onto her bed fully, she figured that now was probably a good time to try and call Lily. However, the brunette didn't make any move to leave the room.

"Would you mind if…if I asked you some questions about it?" Regina asked reluctantly, she was sure there was a better way to phrase that question, "so you know…I can be a better buddy…"

The other teen's first instinct was to say 'no', she barely even let Archie ask her questions, but it made logical sense that she would need to understand more about her if she was going to help her.

"Sure," she replied.

Regina hesitated for a moment as she looked between the bed and the desk that she had sat at the last time they had spent an extended amount of time together. A few seconds passed before she realised that it would make sense for her to sit closer if they were going to have a serious conversation.

Emma felt the blush intensify as the cheerleader came over and sat on her bed, even if she was as far as way as she possibly could be.

A beat passed before Emma asked, "okay…what did you want to ask?"

 **Reviews would be much appreciated, particularly for motivation XD**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N I found this on my laptop, completely forgot that I wrote this flashback lol**

 **I couldn't find a place to put it in my current plan but I thought at least a few people might be interested in it so I figured it could be an update :)**

 **Major T/W for descriptions of abuse and homophobia!**

Chapter twelve

 _Six days._

 _It had been six days since Emma had left the Chase house and it was finally getting to her. She found herself twitching whenever she heard a door open and close and she only left the study when it was absolutely necessary._

 _Victoria and Nathan had finally stopped trying to spend time with her against their parents will and she had to wonder what they could have said to her. Did they tell them what gay meant? The children surely wouldn't understand, which would mean that they would start to agree with their parents without even understanding what it was they were so vehemently against._

 _The blonde took in a shaky breath at the thought that she may have been helping to create two homophobes by not reporting what was happening, but she put that thought aside every time she saw the worsening condition of her nose whenever she built up the courage to look into the mirror when the pain was at its worst. August would be back in exactly eight days and then she would be able to call him and end this living hell. The risk that Nathan and Victoria would start to believe whatever their parents had told them was far outweighed by the risk of the pair of them getting placed into an equally as abusive home, but August would be able to fix everything, he wouldn't allow two children to get lost in the system and she knew that there was no one that she trusted more to protect them._

 _However, the thoughts of protecting them were currently not at the forefront of her mind as her stomach grumbled. She had been ordered to not leave this room because Mr and Mrs Chase were holding a get-together with their neighbours. From all of the cheering, she guessed that there was some kind of game on. This wouldn't be a problem if she hadn't gotten the chance to eat the day before either. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that she could take whatever she wanted out of the cupboards so long as she didn't do so when there was anyone else around to witness it and that she didn't take too much (which meant that stocking up for the weekend hadn't really been an option). Since this whole arrangement of her sleeping in the study had started, she had noticed that she had began to significantly lose weight, but at least she had enough to keep herself alive. In that moment though, she didn't feel as though she was going to last long enough to call August when he finally got back to New York._

 _Emma took another shaky breath as she placed her hand over her stomach which seemed to instantly rumble at the contact. She was fairly certain that she was beginning to understand what people meant when they said that people who believed they were starving after a few hours without food were being hyperbolic. She had certainly been hungry before, but this was seriously starting to become painful, especially when she could tell from the odours drifting through the air that there was probably some kind of buffet set out for the Chase's guests._

 _The teen swallowed hard and allowed her eyes to drift over to the door as she considered whether this would be a good idea. After a moment, she decided that there was no way that this would ever be anything but completely moronic, but that she had to at least try. If they were in fact watching a football game, then they would probably be close enough to the end of the game by now that no one would be willing to peel themselves away from the action._

 _She could easily make it to the kitchen and just grab something to eat and some water without anyone in the living room seeing her. She was fairly certain that the Chases must have told their friends that she was out somewhere with friends or something since there must have been at least some suspicion as to why no one had seen her in the last week. She was used to saying 'hello' to the neighbours as she walked towards school so there was no doubt that her foster parents would have got one or two enquiries as to her wellbeing. Since it had only been a week, it was probably believable enough to just say that she had the flu or something, but seeing her would break any illusions of that being true._

 _After another moment of consideration, she decided that she didn't really have a choice at this point. She needed food and this would be the best time since she would make too much noise if she tried to sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night (and she had a bruise on her stomach to prove as much)._

 _Slowly, as if she was waiting for something to stop her, she made her way over to the door which she slowly pushed open to confirm her suspicions that they were indeed nearing the end of the game, judging by the booming cheering that she could hear coming from the living room._

 _The blonde looked both ways in the corridor, before she cautiously made her way down the hallway, though she found herself cringing as she walked._

 _Even though she hadn't actually done anything to garner attention from Mr Chase since that night a few days ago when he had caught her in the kitchen, she found that the man had taken to just randomly coming into the study just to vent some anger. It appeared as though she was now officially his punching bag who he could wail on whenever he had a bad day or the fact that he was allowing someone so 'disgusting' to live in in his home became too much for him to handle._

 _Emma stopped halfway down the hallway and closed her eyes when she felt a sudden wave of dizziness. She fell against the wall as she took a moment to get herself together. When she finally opened her eyes, she swallowed hard and pulled up her shirt. Her entire body was now littered in bruises, but she was fairly certain that at one or two of her ribs had snapped when the heavy duty boot had collided with them._

 _Nothing on her body seemed to be healing and she was genuinely afraid that some of the wounds might never heal if she didn't get to a hospital first. However, she decided that right now, food and water had to be her number one priority and she started making her way towards the kitchen with a distinct limp as she went and a lot of nausea. As she walked, she started to think how it was complete bullshit when people said that your body wouldn't allow you to feel too much pain, she felt like every inch of her body was in agony._

 _She held her hand against the wall as she made her way further down the hallway and she paused just outside of the open living room door. The sound that she had heard from the study was now almost deafening and it comprised of a lot shouting of 'come on'._

 _Emma took a couple of deep breaths; she knew that there was no way that Mr Chase would look too kindly upon his friends seeing his foster daughter hobbling across the doorway. For a brief second, the teen's stomach dropped when she realised that there was a chance that the Chase's friends thought exactly the same way as they did. What if they just started joining in? However, the blonde just put this thought aside when she realised that not everybody was like them, in fact, statistically it was very unlikely that people so willing to hurt another person would live next to each other. Though, the past couple of weeks had almost made her forget that there weren't people who would feel sick at the thought of laying their hands on another person._

 _Another shout of excitement brought her out of her moment of indecision and she finally walked as quickly as she could across the opening. When she made it to the other side, she doubled over and clutched her side as she took ragged breaths. She hadn't moved that quickly in a long time and she was beginning to wonder whether food could be worth this amount of pain, but she quickly decided that it would at least help to ease the cramps even if it would do nothing for the rest of the agony coursing through her veins at almost every hour of the day._

 _Half a minute later, she hobbled into the kitchen and she couldn't stop herself from licking her lips at the sight of what must have been prepared for the neighbours. As slowly and carefully as she possibly could, she walked over to the counter and simply marvelled at the sight before her._

 _There was a platter full of sandwiches and a bowel of potato chips. Emma knew for a fact that these had to be left-overs since she had witnessed the sheer amount of food that Mrs Chase had made for Nathan's birthday two months ago. Of course, back then she didn't have to sneak into the kitchen to some of the left-overs since she had been allowed to attend the party and eat as much as any other guest._

 _She reached forward and picked up a sandwich. She knew that she should have been grabbing what she wanted and then rushing to make her way back towards the study so that she wouldn't be caught red-handed, but she couldn't stop herself from simply staring at the ham enclosed between bread for a moment. There was a louder shout than usual from the living room and Emma instantly cringed when she heard the distinct sound of Mr Chase saying that he would go and get some paper towels. Obviously, someone must have spilt something over themselves._

 _The blonde looked around herself a few times as she looked around for a way to escape, but she knew that even if there was some other way out of the kitchen, there was no way that she would be able to move fast enough to get away in time. Sure enough, the sound of Mr Chase's signature boots began to get louder and her injured body simply froze in place. In that moment, she was pretty sure that she didn't particularly look like a genius, more like a deer caught in headlights._

 _As she expected, the heavy sound of the boots that now made her flinch slightly with each step stopped abruptly as the man stopped at the threshold to the kitchen and narrowed his eyes at the blonde._

 _"I told you to stay in your room," he said lowly._

 _Emma swallowed hard and looked down to the sandwich still clutched tightly in her hand and she knew that there was no lie that would get her out of what was about to happen._

 _"I…I'm hungry," she replied._

 _"You're lucky that we've allowed you to eat any of our food. Do you really think that directly disobeying us is the best way to get what you want?" the man asked as his jaw clenched._

 _Emma bit the inside of her cheek. She knew that look on his face meant that there was nothing that was going to stop him from hurting her. The anger probably meant that he had completely forgotten that it wasn't just his family in the house at the moment. That meant that there would be nothing stopping the man from reacting on his first instinct._

 _As much as it would have made logical sense for him to simply send her back to the study and then come and punish her later for her insubordination, Emma had come to realise that wasn't how his mind worked. If the man was logical in any way, then he would have realised that he could have just refused to foster anymore rather than having a girl in the house who he so clearly despised._

 _He launched forward and grabbed her by the arm, which he promptly twist around so that her back was to his front. The blonde let out a small squeal of pain when the limb bent into a position that she was certain it wasn't supposed to be in._

 _"Please," she whimpered as a tear escaped down her cheek, "don't…"_

 _"You know that rules and yet you continue to break them," he growled close to her ear, "I honestly don't know how else I can make my message clearer."_

 _Emma swallowed hard against the sudden thought that she could just say that he could just let her leave. She was pretty sure that her need to constantly speak out against things that didn't make sense was part of the reason that she had far more bruises than she would have had if she had just kept her mouth shut at all times._

 _When he was sure that the teen wasn't going to say anything else, he brought his hand up to her elbow and snapped back quickly._

 _Emma couldn't help that sharp cry of pain that ripped out of her throat as Mr Chase allowed her to fall down to the ground. She swallowed hard as her vision began to blur and she looked at her arm. She couldn't help praying that the violent bend at the joint was just her imagination. However, she felt the now familiar boot smash down on her forearm and she let out a hiss when she was fairly sure that she heard a snap. Without even giving her a chance to register the fact that he had most likely broken yet another bone in her arm, Mr Chase brought his foot up again and stamped down on her stomach._

 _Emma closed her eyes and actually allowed herself to scream. It was just too much pain and she couldn't do it anymore, "help me," she screamed in such a high pitch that she wasn't completely sure herself whether what she had said could be considered words._

 _A split second later, she heard the rushing of feet coming from the living room, accompanied by Mrs Chase hurriedly saying, "I'm sure that Victoria just had a nightmare."_

 _The feet stopped and Emma allowed herself to open her eyes as her head lolled to its side. As she expected, the Chases had invited their neighbours to watch the game. Two men stood stock still at the sight before them as if they couldn't quite believe that they were seeing was true. Emma turned her head to look up at Mr Chase as he was opening and closing his mouth with desperation written across his face. He was clearly trying to think of a plausible explanation for what his friends were seeing, but he couldn't exactly say that the girl with a million bruises, a broken nose and now a broken arm had just fallen._

 _"Fucking dyke," he growled as he raised his foot to stamp down again, however, before he could make contact, he found himself pinned against the counter behind him. One of his friends was holding him by his collar whilst the other was kneeling next to Emma with a concern playing across his face._

 _"What the hell is wrong with you?!"_

 _Mr Chase remained silent for a moment as he looked over to his wife for help; however, the woman remained completely still. She may not have joined in on the abuse, but it wasn't as if she had done anything to stop it either. But, she hadn't actually seen what her husband had done to the blonde who they had treated as a part of the family not one month ago. Seeing the pathetic girl struggle to keep her eyes open almost made her feel guilty that she had turned a blind eye._

 _When it became clear that his wife wasn't going to do anything, Mr Chase tried to lunge forward out of his friend's grip so that he could get one more hit in, but a knee promptly connected with his stomach. He doubled over before a fist smashed into his face a moment later and he fell down to the ground like a ton of bricks._

 _Emma watched the man who had made her life a living hell fall to the ground. Despite everything, a small grin pulled at the corner of her lips._

 _The last thing that she heard was one of the men saying 'call 911' before she closed her eyes and gave into unconsciousness._


End file.
